Here we describe the tech layers of the full stack. We refer to them collectively as 'the tech region' of the real full stack.
The tech layers of the stack
Our starting place here is what in meet.coop was called 'platform space'.
# Platform layer Platform layer - A **commons of running code**, stretching all the way from the FLOSS repo of source code, thro the stack of applications and tools that the sysadmin handles on the community's server, and out into the browser running on the user's device, via the international and local networks. We include all the associated **practices**, at all points. This adds uo to a very big and challenging version of what is called UX, 'user experience' or usability. This is a pretty complex field to take responsibility for and, in itself, a real tech challenge. Platform layer > On UX, see Toolstack look and feel.
Here we explore some expansions of the principle of 'look and feel' in developing digital infrastructure.
# Toolstack layer The toolstack layer is a **commons of digital tools** - and maybe we should also say underlying *protocols*; or affordances of *an intentional configuration of apps* - within a community, as an intrinsic part of what constitutes the dynamics, relationships and capabilities of practices in the community. Toolstack layer > For some thinking on toolstack, see Toolstack - Digital tools for collaborating
Here we work out ideas about generic tools for digitally mediated organising, collaborating and facilitating.
# Bandwidth layer The bandwidth layer is a commons of **signal transmission and processing**: cables and satellite capacity, wayleaves and base stations, data centres and routers, switches and ISPs, regulations and contracts; and all the associated **practices** and alliances. Bandwidth layer
# Access layer The access layer is **a commons of access to data** and (unwitting) metadata. It includes digital identity, intentional sharing of data, theft, intrusion, faking and trust, web scraping and pattern recognition in large corpora of data. Importantly, it includes the **mirroring** of the digital activity and relationships of a community *to* the community, as distinct from - in opposition to - the de facto extraction or theft of data from a community. It embraces so-called AI. Access layer
These configurations might mirror the activity and shape of a community to itself, **beyond the scope of peer-to-peer relationship**; or conversely might 'steal' such insights and extract them for others to exploit. The choice of which is pivotal in our relationships with Big Tech.
# Fundability in the tech layers Project proposals in the tech layers will be less fundable if they have no coherent and well developed dimensions in the solidarity layers or the planet layers. The solidarity layers The planet layers
But of course there is no tech layer without many social practices of provision, operation, maintenance and use, and no commons without practices of stewarding and defence. Equally there is no digital tech without planetary consequences. And there is no significant practice of any kind, without a de facto economy. So in principle it's not hard to imagine well-framed tech-layer proposals that embrace other layers.
Of course what 'the full stack' maps is an ecosystemic reality. Full stack, ecosystem map
Project proposals in the bandwidth layer might be more difficult to frame as viable initiatives - they are the 'heaviest' in material terms and most localised in material scope - and might thus be more erasy to fund when they *are* well framed. This would be a good example of the peer-to-peer principle: 'heavier is more local, lighter is more global'.
See: Platform-tech shopping list - toolstack to enable platform operations Toolstack shopping list - elements of a generic toolstack that might support lots of specific communities Access shopping list - toolstack to enable access to data Bandwidth layer shopping list - kinds of initiatives that can be envisaged