I am following the WebAssembly trend for a while now, from the perspective of “What kind of bet is one making when going with Wasm as early adopter?”. My impression now is that there’s a real there there. Developments in the field are going rapidly, and of course many people are critical (“Meh. Another CORBA? JVM done right? Not gonna happen”). WebAssembly has a long way to go, and one should realize the risk of early bird entry. Much is bleeding edge. There’s also undoubtedly a hype cycle coming where Wasm is over-pitched for things where it shouldn’t be used. This cycle is already picking up steam, and there are frequent discussions on HN on wasm-related works.
I put together a kind of a survey with random bits and nuggets that are inspiring for projects I am interested to evolve. You can see that here:
For me the browser-based applications aren’t the most interesting, but it is use server-side based on WASI/Component Model.
I do agree with what you are saying. I once wrote a long post on this forum that TL;DR’ed into that successful technology adoption requires much more than doing deep technical work. I think its likely that people at Spritely are highly aware of that, and I assume that the rather opaque operational activities are a deliberate choice. It may be a good one too, idk.
What I’ve seen during my years in IT (from 1997 onwards) is that the road to adoption is highest risk, and very often underestimated. In my post I mention Solid project, but in feedback I gave at the time I predicted DAT project to fail as the team was too absorbed in tech. Yet right now, Paul Frazee, working on greenfield tech in Bluesky and alongside business-savvy folks I deem to have much better chances of success with their ATProto specification (for better or worse… I’m a grassroots fedi, FOSS afficionado, and remains to be seen how Bluesky fits in that picture). They roll all that out in a very controlled manner.
So summarizing my thoughts:
- I understand that working in a close group may have its advantages.
- But it may be smart to community that better, for all those folks watching and waiting.
- Right now Spritely does not give opportunities for a healthy community & ecosystem to be established around it. But it may be too early for that phase, and it requires lotsa effort and organization.
While I’m neutral wrt the source of funding (trusting the people involved with Spritely and their principles) I’ve seen quite a few people raising eyebrows. Funding is the achilles heel in FOSS-based R&I, and good funding opportunities are hard to come by. And I guess it is fair ask to explain how that impacts the project and roadmap. Though maybe that too is for a phase where community-building starts.
I should note here that Solid project with VC-funded Inrupt is struggling with their approach to funding and commercial pathway to adoption. Technology adoption imho best works bottom-up by winning the hearts of developers. Solid until now neglected community in favor of deep tech formal working groups and closed business meetings between partners and prospective customers.