: Problems of higher spin led in the 1980s to work of Berends, Burgers and van Dam using field dependent gauge symmetries which later was interpreted by Fulp, Lada and me as an L∞-structure. Interest in this approach has recently revived in relation to deformation theory, ‘derived’ geometry and the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism. This talk will be a survey intended to (re)introduce this topic to a wider audience and work in progress with Tom Lada and Andreas Deser.