A lot of people use different words to describe different systems. For example, words like “platform” are commonplace. We believe that using the right words to describe things aids in making better products, so we use word Ecosystem to describe Gravity.

Nature shows us that even the most sprawling trees spring from humble (and centralized) beginnings as a simple seed. And a project like ours begins with one seed as well, created by the Gravity core team. But as every seed contains within it the blueprint for a tree or a vegetable, our blueprint has a whole ecosystem in mind. One of the main goals of our ecosystem is to bridge the gap between the old world of centralized corporations and the new decentralized world of small highly efficient autonomous teams/companies/communities.

To that end, right now the Gravity Ecosystem consists of three things:

Gravity Protocol — all of our previous articles were about Gravity Protocol, so you’re probably familiar with that, but just to be comprehensive, it is a free, open-source, decentralized blockchain and all free & open source libraries and modules that extend its core functionality.

Gravity Solutions Gmbh — a new company incorporated in Zug, Switzerland, which aims to provide commercial solutions based on Gravity Protocol and work with system integrators, which are part of the next group.

Independent Developer Teams — Gravity Protocol provides tools that make developing on top of Gravity Protocol interesting to independent teams. There is a pool of funds, that can be used to support independent developers, and businesses, aiming to broaden the toolset available to everyone in the Gravity Ecosystem. Independent Developer Teams could be teams working on the Gravity Protocol itself, or someone such as a system integrator, or even a business built on top of Gravity Protocol.

More? — There may be more significant entities in the Gravity Ecosystem in the future, please watch this space for further publications as things evolve.

Let’s go into more detail about all of the entities which make up Gravity Solutions and Independent Developer Teams.

Gravity Foundation

Gravity Foundation is a legal entity which represents Gravity Protocol DAC when such representation is required. Gravity Protocol DAC is governed by our community of stakeholders based on their Gravity Index, and blockchain mechanisms will be used to direct the operation of Gravity Foundation. Gravity Foundation is concerned only with things pertaining to the protocol level. We are currently looking for a good jurisdiction to create Gravity Foundation, and more details will be provided in future articles..

Gravity Solutions Gmbh

If you’ve been part of the Free Open Source Community in the last 20+ years, there are great examples for an entity like ours even outside blockchain industry. The easiest to remember are companies such as Red Hat Software outside of the blockchain industry, or Consensys inside it.

Gravity Solutions Gmbh seeks to provide turnkey solutions based on top of Gravity Protocol and other blockchain systems, as well as helping to extend our tools to everyone building on top of Gravity Protocol. Because we believe that the term Decentralized Solution Provider means not only a Provider of Decentralized Solutions, but that eventually, it would be possible to provide such solutions in Decentralized Manner. With that in mind, Gravity Solutions works with system integrators, both centered around Gravity, and those providing blockchain agnostic products. Gravity Solutions also develops Frameworks, which are outside of the protocol layer, and expand its functionality.

Independent Developer Teams

That means you, the reader! You are the one who makes our vision of an ecosystem happen with your contributions, projects, D'apps etc.

We aim to foster a culture of projects that play off each other and interlock like puzzle pieces, (or like UNIX utilities) and make it possible to solve complex problems by linking those pieces together.

We also like to incentivize the inclusion of completed and actively maintained projects as modules available to everyone as part of the Gravity Protocol Toolset, so that more complex or more narrowly targeted solutions can be built using them. Besides, Gravity Solutions is just one company, and usually, local businesses prefer to work with local teams, that speak their language and understand local specifics ect. So one of our aims is to attract system integrators, to provide Gravity based solutions to businesses in their immediate areas.. One of the better ways to scale is scaling horizontally.

More?

To create a thriving ecosystem, we need more than just a solid technological stack, and mechanisms that incentivize the participation in the ecosystem. An ecosystem is not just a set of tools, it is also a culture, a set of standards, best practices and good communication between its participants. We do have something in mind that would create and maintain all those things. But that is something better discussed in its own publication on a later date.

by Petr Asalhanov