Re: [ox-en] Giftforge
- From: "Franz Nahrada" <f.nahrada reflex.at>
- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:18:47 +0200
The idea : a developer community dedicated solely to the furthering of
gift economy in the real world.
(The term "gift economy" is somewhat loaded, but I can't think of a
better one right now)
Good thought!
lust a caveat:
Gift economy is just a name but not really the understanding how it could
work.
We must be gifted to be able to give.
circular economy, cooperative economy, solidarity economy would apply as
well.
I draw your attention to this endvour from Vienna:
http://vivirbien.mediavirus.org/wiki/About%20Vivir%20Bien/
http://vivirbien.mediavirus.org/wiki/What%20Is%20Vivir%20Bien/
"Vivir Bien compiles initiatives and structures that are outside the scope
of profit-based capitalist logic. We call such initiatives and structures
"resources". The framework used should be as broad as possible. Vivir Bien
provides a platform for activities based on different theoretical concepts
and labels. We focus on two approaches in particular: solidarity economies
and commons."
you are right if you point to the fact that vivir bien seems rather to map
than to develop such resources. But the mapping is an essential component,
see below. It pretty much covers your "discover" point!
dor the other points: ("engage" and "participate")
I had discussions with Mathew Slater of communityforge, who is still
focussing on community currencies.
Not to my surprise, Mathew agreed that there is a much broader meaning in
his endavour and he was seeking collaborators to expand the view. I will
keep him informed and forward your adress.
We need several things at once:
* have professional communities of providers - lets call it "horizontal"
although it is exactly what is called "vertical" in the business software
market. But if you agree on the assumption that a cooperative economy is
always also a regional economy, than there is a need for global viewpoints
of people who are in the profession of providing particular products and
servides. Even though, in the very sense of communism, they might not be
bound to this "profession". But in fact the provision of a certain kind of
good or service even in a free, nonmonetary context is some kind of fixed
structure with its own problems, methods, tools, materials and so on. This
is and should be a global endavour from the beginning, it should be based
on a maximum of reproduceable elements.
so from "open shoes" we come to "open shoemakers" and create knowledge
about sustainably embedding functions into - if you want - gift cycles.
The open shoemaler needs to have a lot of competences about leather, tools
etc. - they draw from professional experiences from the monetarized
world, but they modify it.
* have a mechanism for these communities to interlock on a physical scale
and form cycles. Mapping is a good tool to become aware of the existence
of resources, if you want it is a stone-age tool at the birth of
solidarity economics, but then you want to establish quality arrangements
and reliability and some sense of mutuality (this is really the weak point
of Oekonux / Keimform appoaches). So we would need flow maps, allowing us
to optimize physical resource flows. This in some way might replace
monetary relations. Wolfram Pfreundshuh calls it "contractual economies"
even though the term "contract" is heavilily loaded by monetary systems
and their legality.
as far as I can see, all that work is undone.
recently I came to see http://communitytools.info/tools/, where the local
interlocking is also a theme.
I really dont know if it is possible to develop a distinct system for
nonmonetary use "solely". But I am constantly agonizing about this. We
need to put our brains together.
all the best
Franz
David Collins <david indigo.uk.to> wrote
The idea : a developer community dedicated solely to the furthering of
gift economy in the real world.
(The term "gift economy" is somewhat loaded, but I can't think of a
better one right now)
My perception is that there an increasing number of people trying to
develop sharing, recycling and other types of cooperative and giving
platforms over the last few years.
As of yet, however, they seem to be doing so largely in isolation.
And, I was thinking, some sort of hub for development and discussion
might be valuable in this regard.
We should try to make it easier for people to:
1. find out about these projects (project list)
2. participate in their development (assuming this is ok with the
author) (git repositories, or something similar)
3. engage in whatever discussions might be necessary to ensure that
these efforts are successful as possible (discussion forum or mailing
lists)
I have tried trawling through the list of projects on sourceforge.net a
number of times - in an attempt to establish if anyone is already working
on a project similar to my own.
But it's quite time-consuming trying to find the handful of projects that
might be relevant.
This proposal has been copied to
http://indigo.uk.to/~david/notes/giftforge.html . I will be revising and
updating it as appropriate.
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de