We are proposing this model for developing open source products, which includes voluntary funding from many stakeholders:
More notes are found here, and the more extensive proposal is here.
Today, Michel Bauwens of P2P Foundation commented that he’s struggling with the meaning of the intesection between open source information and physical production. So am I. I responded:
The answer to the p2p link of immaterial and material economy is integration. This is what we’re testing in our lab. The key summary is: 1. Develop open source design for products voluntarily. 2. Develop fabrication facilities, voluntarily. 3. Optimize everything, voluntarily. 4. Provide goods for market from an open source, optimized, replicable production facility.
Step 4 leads into self-funding mechanism – once production is real, proceeds can support further work.
How to do this voluntarily? Funding is needed. That’s where a funding mechanism (prior to the bootstrapping funding of Step 4) is needed, and that, to me, is the cutting edge of open source economic development. With this funding mechanism, we fund production facilities, optimize, and everyone benefits: low cost, high quality products, that cannot be matched by standard businesses because the open source variant is lean, mean, and optimal. This is what we’re working on, see notes on the process here, and application to our compressed earth block press here.
The challenge is absolute integration. The development of the new production model requires that we integrate open source product development with productive earning from that development. At Factor e Farm, we’re going a step further, and contributing our time and facilities to make the process a lean, mean business model that breaks through all types of preconceptions of what business should look like. The standard features: design, fabrication facility, personnel, return on investment, growth, optimization, and others are all considered, but each aspect turns the traditional meaning of these terms upside down. We envision voluntary, on-demand production, via advanced and affordable flex-fab facilities, as a replicable and even mainstreamable form of production. As the scale of economies is reduced by advanced technology and information flows – this possibility of unprecedented quality of life emerges. No strings attached.
