research: federation concepts for unified information spaces

Document Federated Wiki mechanics (fork, journal, inverted browser model),
Caulfield lifecycle concepts, and comparison with git-backed wikis,
ActivityPub/XWiki, Xanadu patterns, and yawex REMOTE/VIRTUAL. Map
findings to shard-wiki INTENT without equating fedwiki to orchestration.

research/260608-federation-concepts/README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# 260608 — Federation concepts for unified information spaces
+
+Date: 2026-06-08
+
+## What this is
+
+Research into **federation models** for decentralized but unified knowledge
+spaces — with emphasis on **Federated Wiki** (Ward Cunningham, ~2011+) and
+comparable approaches (git-backed wikis, ActivityPub, Xanadu patterns, yawex
+REMOTE/VIRTUAL).
+
+Complements `research/260608-c2-wiki-origins/` (pre-federation wiki culture)
+and `research/260608-yawex-prior-art/` (Perl engine resolution states).
+
+Focus: terms, architectural patterns, and **mapping to `shard-wiki` INTENT**
+— not implementation specification.
+
+## Contents
+
+| Path | Role |
+|------|------|
+| `findings.md` | Glossary, model comparison, shard-wiki mapping, open questions, sources |
+
+## Status
+
+Initial exploration complete. Findings may inform `spec/` and future
+workplans; not yet promoted to specification.