Openfarmtech

[Anne Moreland]

Thank you for this Rollin.

On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 6:28 AM, Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have worked on site with OSE in Missouri.
>
> On site Marcin is setting development priorities.
>
> Over time Marcin has been learning about the value of egalitarian
> leadership on site so as to retain on site volunteers.
>
> That said, my work with him was to build out a tracking application for the
> project so that he could see the site he is on, FactorEFarm, as one node in
> a network of all of the thousands of projects working on "appropriate
> technology".  For more examples of this you can check out
> http://www.appropedia.org/Welcome_to_Appropedia and others.
>
> My thought was that Marcin, who sees himself as a pioneer, would see fit to
> engage a bit of participatory democracy if he felt a bit less alone in his
> pursuit.
>
> At the same time, this would help him to focus on an "involving" approach
> for fundraising, taking a partnership approach to development with the fans
> and supporters.
>
> This has worked to a certain extent.  It is true that he is still a
> dictator, and that the site itself is owned partially by him, and I see from
> reading between the lines that people are on site following their own dreams
> and I can only assume he doesn't have time to tell everyone what to do all
> the time, so some freedom is present.
>
> Anyways, this is not a critique of Marcin, but meant to be an look on the
> inside of how he the "network" of the  project looks.  Marcin needs to make
> some decisions about resource usage locally as these decisions really effect
> him.
>
> Supporters choose to support Marcin and those whom he has as volunteers for
> at least two reasons:
>
> 1.  They like Marcin long term perspective.
> 2.  They like what he is working on right now.
>
> In some cases we get a third.  Some groups might support Marcin's work
> because it is a piece of something they are working on.
>
> Votorola is in fact very much like the project tracking page I made for
> Marcin.
>
> http://factorefarm.org/view/projects/all
>
> This page lists Marcin's on site projects short and long term.
>
> These could be seen as "Master Polls"
>
> Perhaps Marcin has a master poll for "Fermentation Technology and
> documentation"
>
> Appropredia has a sub-poll:
> http://www.appropedia.org/Grape_Wine_(Practical_Action_Brief)<http://www.appropedia.org/Grape_Wine_%28Practical_Action_Brief%29>
>
> The ways these groups could work together with Votorola is very interesting
> to me.
>
> A
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 7:32 AM, Thomas von der Elbe <
> ThomasvonderElbe at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> thank you Anne for the link to the openfarmtech-group. Very exciting
>> stuff! I spend the whole day yesterday watching their videos on their
>> progress.
>> For the others: It is a project of 3 people and 100 supporters which
>> work on open source hardware for resilient community building, i.e.
>> open source tractors etc. The aim is to grow to a size of 30 people.
>>
>> Now, Alex introduced me to the idea of p2p decision making in economic
>> contexts and I´m still struggeling to fully grasp the possibilities.
>> (My initial approach was purely political.)
>>
>> But here it's obvious. First I thought: the project is great, but
>> Votorola is not of much use for these guys, because the real benefits
>> come for large groups. 30 people might still be able to sit together
>> and work out their decisions without a software. But I was blind! The
>> project does ofc include its supporters. They are the ones paying the
>> 30 engineers for developing open-source hardware, so they should ofc
>> have a say in this process. :-)
>> By taking part in the decision making they really become part of the
>> project instead of just being donors. This is perfect, isnt it?
>>
>> Is this, what you had in mind , Anne? Or am I getting something wrong?
>> Actually I'm new to the depth of open-source-philosophy.
>>
>> Best,
>> Thomas

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