"Even without considering radical projects like all the Open Money and Metacurrency initiatives that proposes new forms of currencies, we can think more about further joining existing currencies with microcredit certificates like the Open Source Hardware Reserve Bank ones. There is the need of accurate, portable and shareable tools of reputation ranking, able to interconnect different local contexts and attached to existing currencies. The Open Hardware still needs proper open-content licenses, since with current licenses we can protect the design but not the manufactured product or forks. And Open Hardware projects will have the need of warranties and conformance marks about the proper function of the manufactured product. Why don't we use the microcredit certificates for these tasks as well? We could design microcredit certificates to act as a conformance mark, warranty and license certificates as well: only the community can issue them and use them for its own self-organization." (http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2011/open-design/business-models-for-open-hardware/) "

"Open source hardware has a set of business models that include the following: Design distribution - Companies can pack sets of designs and sell the distribution just like Linux distributions. The OpenTech CD-ROM is an example of this method. Design technical support - Experts can give support for Open designs. Asics.ws is a company that follows this model by releasing IP cores and charging customers for technical support. Design implementation - Companies can implement the designs, sell them and pay royalties to original designers, according to their release license. Releasing - The release of open designs under the control of GPL-compatible licenses can occur whenever a silicon implementation is considered commercially." "

"Furthermore, there are three more business models for Open Hardware already implemented: 1. Free service for building a greater user base: Adafruit created Adafruit Jobs Board as a marketplace for designers, makers, programmers, artists, engineers and companies who want to meet and work together. This is a free service, but in order to use the job boards users must be Adafruit customers. 2. Partnership between Long Tail Open and Fabbing businesses: Ponoko has teamed up with SparkFun Electronics to enable its users to build custom electronics products combining Ponoko's laser cutting technology with a 1500+ strong electronics catalog from open source electronics supplier SparkFun. 3. Funding Open Hardware projects for getting good Open documentation: In August 2010, Bildr offered to fund original user projects in return for good documentation: in this way it would have promoted a bildr user by showcasing his/her work and paying for the parts to construct it. In return, Bildr would have got more information for its wiki, blog and community under the MIT software license.""

"The Forty Percent Model This model is based on a simple rule: transparency about costs and a choice between paying us to make the product or doing it yourself. The basic process is that we list all the components and other costs of our product (an autonomous blimp in this case) and links to where you can buy them yourself, along with instructions on how to put them together. If you want to do it yourself, or perhaps already have some of the parts and don't need ours, go for it!"

"The current Open Source Hardware Draft Definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for Open Source Hardware and it says that Open Hardware is "a term for tangible artifacts - machines, devices, or other physical things - whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those things". The main difference with Open Source Software is that Open Source Software is collaborative, while Open Hardware is derivative:"

The key of values, by FSF : "The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution."

Raphael Rousseau, our co-founder and the most in free culture of Ynternet.org team, is pointing this definition as THE key. Situations can change, sometimes even licenses can update version and become less or more appropriate, but what is interesting is the definition, then it is easy to rely it to a license that suits the specific situation.

Here we can see that Opensource Hardware" is a n expression mostly used for computer-related hardware. It is intersting to evaluate if OSE and wikispeed should relate to other branches of opensources, non-computerized ones ?

"Open hardware companies are experimenting with different business models. Arduino, for example, makes money largely through design consulting. By creating a design community around their products, they stay in touch with the latest developments. They have also registered their name as a trademark."

I don't know if he's right, but he is pointing some intersting existing debates

As well OSE then wikispeed are interested in getting suggestion to define the best licence. This is why I open this new topic to discuss and share knowldege.

The idea is to come up with a framewrok that would support the choice of :
- the most appropriate license for these projects
- the good type of contract for those contributing
- the good related governance model to protect the image, the movement, while developing as much harmoniously as possible the financial self-sustainability of the OSE project, with a large development and a strong ethic.

Somehow, FSF already succeded all this, but in the software domain.
We can learn from them and others dedicated to openHardware.

Ynternet.org team will try to facilitate your choices.

Kindly yours

Théo

This is the track of a conversation through emails between Marcin and Théo about OSE governance

Question on August 24th by Marcin
Inbetween lines Theo's answers on the 30th of august 2012

Le 24. 08. 12 15:22, Marcin Jakubowski a écrit :
> Thanks for your insights.
you're welcome :-)
> Please tell me more about the procedures in Wikimedia Foundation.
ok, below

I copy to Aaron and Raphael, without any expectation of answer, just for information

feel free to post these controbutions into your wiki or point me in which page you think I should post them,

I wish we could talk (I'm a lot better in oral then written form), and anyway latest we will meet in April 2013, we are preparing you a great moment of knowledge sharing and promoting OSE in Europe

I also posted links in our diigo for OSEwatch, with the tag governance
in breif, the key governance methods compatible with opensource and post-scarcity are :
- sociocracy
- consensus-based democracy
- opensource governance models (not specially wikipedia nor Moodle, but mostly bazaar approaches in little projects)

Common point of all those : they all aim at reaching a higher Gross Happiness , thus contributing in replacing the the old consumerist Gross Income model.


I suggest you always keep in mind that they exist have to innovative ecological models .
those without digital/wiki culture (such as sociocracy Non-Violent Communication - NCV alias CNV in French)
those with digital/wiki culture (such as wikicracy, condorcet+, bazaar opensource governance ...)

And besides, for OSE and it's headquarters in Missouri, you have decisional process that affects :
A) the online community on the wiki and mailing lists/forums of OSE website-s (for example will there be a tool on water filtering within the 50 first GVCs tool, and which priority will it be given to develop it)
B) the local co-living community, where stakes and challenges are different (for example who will have a private room, who can decide what which seeds will be planted in the land next year, how to manage a personal conflict, who will be in charge of buying...)

therefore, somehow, they should be two different gov methods, one for A, one for B.

> Is there a link to any of their procedures?

yes, I posted them here with the tag governance

> We should simply copy that which is relevant. If you can also point us to other places where we can gather useful governance information, please link to that as well.
>

ok, here it is :

Wikimedia governance procedure is considered by those applying it as a toolbox, not a secured law, in the sense that they decide on a more or less "democratic" process depending on the level of importance of the decisions, with always possibilities by members to propose a review of the decision.

It uses informally the sociocratic principle of "circle of decision" :

1) Articles are beeing often monitored by one single person, call a "watch dog", and it can create big frustration for newcomers being often revoked when tha add new content within existing "potentially controversial" articles such as for example anthroposophy (considered as a "religion" within Wikipedia French language"

2) Election for the headquarters (foundation) board are made by "Condorcet+ method", the most "open-source compatible" one for big elections

3) Steward are elected and then decide by consensus when they have to suspend a page for editing conflict

4) The founder Jimmy Wales is considered as the honorary president (initially the benevolent dictator, but not anymore, since the community has grown too much for a dictatorship, like it is in Debian community), meanwhile Jimmy stays an "egery" (symbol) of the community, although after he took the decision of deleting a nude pix on commons.wikimedia.org, the community suspended his rights of administrating the commons pix database.

5) National chapters make decisions on lots of national opportunities, and have almost no right considering global decision, which creates tensions.


But with OSE and it's GCVs it's :
A) an online community governance model with both social and economical stakes, and
B) meanwhile it's a local community living management model, which is a lot more difficult somehow, because co-living is a huge challenge in our modern hyperindividualistic community

In community living such as Emmaus social centers, Foccolari or anthroposophic centers, Ecovillages (such as Findhorn, Auroville), the fact is that it is hard to create a real democracy, the decisions are often taken by a little group (or even a single) which arrived first or created trust with the founder. These leader-s are leaders because they succeed to motivate and lead, and gaining slowly trust with their wise position.
This is the "artisan" way of governing. When it grows up to thousands of co-habitants (such as the aim of Ecopol), industrialization requires that founders become less indispensable, that's the big challenge in a real-life community.

This is why our Cluster (Smala, Ynternet.org, ...) is aiming at building an "Ecopol" with at least 2'000 persons : to test new forms of governance with postscarcity economy, gathering both opensource culture with sociocratic/consensual/NVC (Non-Violent Communication) approaches of having ancient/wise listening to the potential suffering or missunderstanding of each co-habitant.

In such innovative community governance model both artisanal 8little size, less then 100) and industrial (in fact over 100 cohabitants, but mostly when it reaches thousands), the good governance key-indicator is the ability to reach to consensus for important decisions.
But many little decision are taken by one or 2 person-s, even in big "democratic" postscarcity communities such as Auroville, Damanhur, Findhorn...

When people think that the decision taken by little groups (1-5 persons for example) need to be rediscussed, the little group have to accept it and restart discussing.

Finally, as I said to Aaron, I suggested that in term both economical and social governance, you look at the Moodle model
these models are rarely (or never as far as I know) defined in a resumed clear form, since "sustainability is complex".
But you can learn by doing. And I started posting links to "howtos" with the tag governance in our social bookmakring (diigo) webtool, so if you wish that I post more, let me know. Maybe give me a feedback on what you need exactly.

And since there is a "core development" at (what I call) OSE "headquarters" in Missouri, it might be better to have mix between the Moodle-alike ecosystem and the "wikimedia-alike" governance ecosystem (a variety of toolto be used depending on importance of stakes for the entire community).

The major question on my humble opinion is "how much resources (time-money) is OSE headquarter and each future micro-factory willing to spent in managing socio-economical relationship" ?
right now, I would suggest people should accept you are a benevolent dictator, and you gather some board member and co-habitants around you to validate your orientations/choices. Meanwhile, you could announce formally (in the wiki, as a letter to the community and true fans) that you intend to share more and more (this is the way I do, I start with all the power, and if I keep this power alone with time in a Smala house, it means the governance is not going in the democratic/sociocratic/wikicratic direction). Right now, we have a very limited community in Switzerland, and have no big group co-living.
Yesteday, we finally found a land affordable but not perfectly appropriate because a bit too little (at least we can start something), so I signed the contract for buying it, we can start again to build a community and this time we will be owners.

But since 1992, I started and managed various houses of coliving (nor owned, just laon by city councils to avoid squatting) with this situation of having other people becoming seriously involved, gained my trust, and they got high decisional power without me being able to give a veto even on essential things, meanwhile we were continuing trying to reach consensus everytime it's possible.

This is why in our cluster of socio-environmental entreprises (Ecopol, Ynternet.org, Smala), we spend quite a lot in listening, facilitating, slowly, quitely, sustainably. Besides, we also work a lot on project-oriented method for the socioeconomical side of the project : who succeeds in geting funds is in charge personnaly, and it is in the same a biug charge and a big honor to reach a level where the co-leaders include a person in the executive direction and authrorize that person to sign grant demand and then manage it.

We also consider that merit is important, and steps with rituals :

1. newcomers arrive as invitees, trainees, participants, they contribute but have no right to decide, just sometime they are consulted informally or formally.

if they demand to stay more then a week, they are integrated as potential future resident by the "resident" which are sustainably inside

we have a step by step integration ritual, with a checklist on how to use mutualised tools/spaces both virtual and physical (the wiki, the fridge) and we create private spaces for putting private things in the public spaces (each person has a private space in the kitchen, the living room the bibliotek...) , movies to watch on our visions & believes (such as "la belle verte" and "surplus")

2. after about 6 month only, they can demand the statut of resident, and start integrating the newcomers

3. after 12-18 months, they can become formal "sustainable resident", and only then they can sign documents to order things for the community, develop their own "branch of activity", etc...

4. main critical decisions about the local community are only taken by "sustainable residents", a minority self-organized.

We always make sure that all co-habitants are not ghettos of any profile, and as coordinator/articulator I always try to have at least 20% ancient (over 60 years old), 10% under 20 years old, and all type of profiles between 20-60 years old : not only one type of socioprofessional situation, but a mix of profile which were previously some functionaires, some microentrepreneurs, social activists, teachers, socially poor and rich...
If I see they are 2 persons with the same problem (alcool, frustration, difficulty dealing with order, radical survivalists, people refusing computers, people with difficulty to negociate...) I always pay a lot of attention to avoid trouble by not having newcomers asking to be resident if they have similar profiles (which would create a ghetto).

On OSE case, with 2 different situations )(local and online community), I'd suggest that :

- main decisions on GVCs are taken by the community of contributors online, if needed
- main decisions on community living are taken by a group of ancien resident and the the indicator of good governane is that ancient resident grow in quality and quantity with time

In our community, we encourage criticism by all participants, at the condition it is only oriented on "how to do better", not oriented on judging nor attacking persons (again : NVC), and regularly (every 3-6 month) we demand formally to the participants to fulfill foms where they formalize what they suggest to empower/embetter. We consider this formalization and data management (evaluation) as a way to avoid crisis.

Besides, in the first 2-4 years, all participants are pionneers.

Our rules :

1) The pionneers that wont stay but quit with kindness and resolve eventual conflict before leaving receive some "greencard" from the sustainable resident (the leaders) to come back anytime for short visits, and send theirs contacts to visit/test/co-live into the community.

2) The pioneers that wishes to stay after 3-10 years are clearly informed that a community has a pioneering phase, but then becomes stabilized, and therefore becomes more structured, with more rules, less opportunity to improvise... except if they continue pioneering in other related communities.

3) regularly (every 1-2 weeks, or at least once a month), we organize little moment of celebration (scheduled long time beefore) where all cohabitants have to be present, we provide simply a good meal, and we have a brief moment (1-10 minutes) to announce who's newly arrived, whos becoming formally resident.

These information on the step by step integration to become a formal sustainable resident are formaly given to cohabitants by oral, so they see that they can build grow their belonging to the community, and so they feel able to chose (in many communities such as ecovillages, unfortunately decisions are taken without formal rules or steps, and therefore people feel insecure and turnover is high).

I encouraged a lot Aaron and you to watch the movie "la belle Verte" (in French with English Subtitle", its a "postscarcity" manifesto, a fiction, duration 70 minutes. It shows some believes behind (or as "prerequisite for") postscarcity governance.

To define our values behing our governance, we often use key words such as :
- voluntary simplicity
- happy sobriety

Based on these community visions/values, we accept that within community living, we lose some thing, we win others
and so people manage better their frustration.

I hope this could help.

My book about ECOPOL, presenting all this and more about deep ecology worldwide, will be hopefully translated in 2013 in English

I hope you'll have the time to look at links posted into the Diigo about governance



> MJ

Théo

"Unfortunately, mature markets tend eventually toward oligopoly or monopoly. In these real-world markets, "normal" profit is too low because it forces firms to concentrate on minimizing costs, which is hard to do when workers demand higher wages, managers want bigger salaries and bonuses, suppliers increase their prices, taxes and regulatory expenses rise, and investors and lenders seek higher returns. It's much easier-and more rewarding to all concerned-for private guardians to create market conditions that support higher-than-normal profits."

the film seems interesting, although typically NOT understdning the opensource culture, theerefore partly promoting an "old paradigm" approach while saying it's a new paradigm apporach

"What is Sociocracy? Sociocracy is a method of designing harmonious organizations, workplaces and associations in which each member is valued equally. It is based on creating self-optimizing systems that are effective and productive. The principles and practices were developed by Gerard Endenburg based on: Modern management theory and practices Quaker traditions of peace education and the valuing of each person Cybernetics, the science of communications and control"

"Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration (such as business administration) wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education,[1] determined through evaluations or examinations. The "most common definition of meritocracy conceptualizes merit in terms of tested competency and ability, and most likely as measured by IQ or standardized achievement tests."[2] Supporters of meritocracies do not necessarily agree on the nature of "merit", however they tend to agree that "merit" itself should be a primary consideration during evaluation. In a more general sense, meritocracy can refer to any form of government based on achievement. Like "utilitarian" and "pragmatic", the word "meritocratic" has also developed a broader definition, and can be used to refer to any government run by "a ruling or influential class of educated or able people.""

"Democracy is a contact sport that everyone should play. Contrary to what we've been taught, it is not a spectator sport. It was specifically designed for amateurs and when professionals take over, they only ruin the game."

"Consensus Democracy focuses on the need to reengineer the approach to local decision making in the 21st Century. It assumes the present system which emphasizes political parties and simple ideology is unable to be effective in a fast-paced age in which constant change creates a new level of interdependency and complexity. It assumes that the old idea of checks and balances will create tremendous gridlock in a society increasingly diverse. "

"The assessment of gross national happiness (GNH; Wylie: rgyal-yongs dga'a-skyid dpal-'dzoms) was designed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product (GDP)."