Crowdfunding capacity for peer production

Last updated on July 23 2015
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They did it again!

In the spring of 2015, the Sensorica network delivered another important proof of concept for commons-based peer production. We demonstrated that equipment for peer production can be endogenously crowdfunded.

Everyone today knows about crowdfunding. In case you are just returning from a trip to Mars, crowdfunding is a new way to raise funds which involves hundreds or even thousands of individuals, the crowd. If you need money for a venture, instead of going to the bank for a loan or getting venture capital you can now use websites like Goteo, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, etc. You present your project on one of these platforms and ask people from around the world to fund you. Crowdfunding is either a donation scheme, people help you to achieve something without expecting much in return for themselves, only a good feeling for having contributed to a good cause, or a pre-sale scheme, people give you money upfront for a service or a product that doesn't need to be finished before the crowdfunding, that you will deliver a few months later. There is also crowdfunding for equity, where people give you money in exchange of shares in your venture, but very few countries have permissive laws for it.

You can find a lot of stories about individuals or small groups who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for their product ideas. This shows that crowdfunding democratizes innovation.

It didn't take long before companies caught up with this trend, realizing that they could not only finance the productization phase (transforming a prototype into a manufacturable product at a competitive price) but also get immediate and valuable feedback from the market (if people finance you before you even have a finished product that means that you have a market, and they might even tell you how to improve your product).

So, before we see what Sensorica did different, let's review a few important features of crowdfunding in general.

Most crowdfunding is used as a pre-sale scheme, Kickstarter being the most popular platform. Goteo is more for open source projects, or for projects that have a social impact. Crowdfunding for equity seems to be adequate for financing infrastructure or capacity development, but it is still in its infancy. 

Almost all the crowdfunding mechanisms are dissociated from the ventures that are using them. They are centralized platforms owned by a classical organization that acts as a mediator between project initiators and their support crowd. 

The crowdfunding model is fueled by three types of actors: the project initiator who proposes the idea and/or project to be funded; individuals or groups who support the idea; and a moderating organization (the "platform") that brings the parties together to launch the idea.  [Wikipedia]

There are also a few examples of self-crowdfunding, where organizations run their campaign on their own platform. This practice is problematic though, because people see in it a conflict of interest. When a third-party that specializes in crowdfunding is used, people trust that the same rules will be applied to everyone and that the data displayed during the process reflects reality.

But things are changing very fast now. Within a year or so, crowdfunding will be implemented on p2p infrastructures based on block chain technology. This means that instead of doing crowdfunding on centralized platforms (the website lives on a proprietary server or cloud, Kickstarter for example) the process will become entirely p2p (the information will live in a bunch of interconnected machines, individually owned by everyone who uses the system). Simply put, the blockchain technology (and who knows what will follow next) decentralizes funding even further. If traditional crowdfunding allows people to fund each other using a centralized proprietary platform, this new technology eliminates the need for a proprietary platform, the company in the middle, and  puts the same people in charge of the process. See more here.

Born in 2003, crowdfunding is already making a leap forward, leaving platforms like Kickstarter wondering about their own survival. The new p2p (or real) crowdfunding, based on blockchain technology, can give much more flexibility to projects or ventures. The problem is that its time has not come yet. It is technologically possible, but the world around it hasn't advanced far enough for it to have a proper ground for implementation. This is where Sensorica and its proof of concept comes in.  

Sensorica is not a typical organization. It is an open value network. It is an open network that does peer production. It is a cluster of open enterprises. It is, in my opinion, the most audacious attempt to implement commons-based peer production of hardware, started in February 2011, one year and 3 months after Satoshi Nakamoto published his paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". It is the furthest humanity has gone into hard core peer production, building peer-run physical labs, peer governance and normative systems, methodologies for open product development, as well as legal structures compatible with all that. Sensorica is the proper environment for p2p (or real) crowdfunding.  

Recent technologies like Ethereum, which also builds on the blockchain technology, have made possible new types of economic entities, the so-called DACs, for Distributed Autonomous Organizations. The first implementations of DACs are quite simple, service based, see for example Peertracks. But this technology will very soon mature to fulfill the needs of p2p hardware innovation and production, which is very complex. This will most probably become the infrastructure on which open value networks like Sensorica will be built in the not so far future.

All that to say that in parallel with the continuous development of crowdfunding there is also a continuous development of organizations, following the same philosophy, based on the same logic, enabled by the same technology. The two movements are about to merge into a coherent economic system, operating on new principles. We are already passed half way into the transition and we can already see what's on the other side.

So what did Sensorica demonstrated? Sorry for holding it, I am trying to save you the best for the end  : )

Sensorica used its network resource planning and contribution accounting system (NRP-CAS), in a context of peer production, to endogenously crowdfund a piece of equipment for the first time in its history. In other words, this is the first time a p2p network that is focused on hardware innovation and production has used a crowdfunding mechanism part of its own infrastructure, not as a service from an external platform, centralized or not.

We used the NRP-CAS to co-finance a $4,000 3D printer. 11 Sensorica affiliates have contributed to this purchase. The example might seem insignificant for the untrained eye, but there is a lot more behind it.

First, there is the issue of trust. Most of these participant affiliates have never seen each other. Two of them live in the US, the rest live in Canada. Some of them are so far away that they will not even be able to use the 3D printer. We passed the trust hurdle. Participation was a bit slow in the beginning, but after we reached a critical mass it got easier. This is trust in a system, trust generated by processes, trust generated through openness and transparency, not so much trust in each other. This is what makes a system scalable and reproducible.

Second, there is the complexity that comes with co-purchasing. Who owns it? What's the agreement between the co-owners? Who can use it and under what conditions? Who is going to pay for maintenance? How are we going to deal with community use, and commercial use, and other types of uses? It is not simple, but this is what technology is good for, reducing complexity or hiding it behind user interfaces.

We created a co-owner agreement and we implemented new functionality within our NRP-CAS to handle the printer's use logging and to perform calculations to account for the material used in the printing process, usage time, technical assistance, etc. For example, is someone makes commercial use of the 3D printer the cost is split into:

• cost of the material used, 
• some % will go into a maintenance budget account for the 3D printer, 
• some % will go to a general infrastructure maintenance and development account,
• some % will go to pay back the co-owners (the agreement stipulates that once they are paid back plus 20% to cover their risk, the 3D printer becomes part of the pool of shareables), 
• some money will go to pay a technician, if needed.    

All that complexity is absorbed by the technology that we are developing.

NOTE: Sensorica's NRP-CAS is not decentralized, it is not using blockchain technology, because this new p2p infrastructure is not ready yet to handle all the complexity that the open value network is dealing with. This will probably come in two years from now. Moreover, when Sensorica was created the blockchain technology was still in its embryonic state. Therefore, it is probably difficult for the untrained eye to understand how this new Sensorica proof of concept fits with new pure p2p processes. Think of Sensorica as p2p at the socio-economic level, but not entirely at the infrastructure level. This is still a work in progress.

This crowdfunding endogenous to an open value network was implemented using the Custodian's financial tools, a Paypal account. See definition of a Custodian. All the contributions were recorded into a virtual account on Sensorica's NRP-CAS, specifically opened for the purchase of the 3D printer. Once the printer was purchased this account balance went back to 0$.

The lesson here is that an open value network is able to not only crowdsource and crowdfund innovation and production, but also infrastructure development. The tools used by Sensorica, a p2p organization at the socioeconomic level, are not entirely p2p, but we are building understanding and valuable experience, and we are anxiously waiting for the blockchain technology to mature.

By Tiberius Brastaviceanu

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By AllOfUs

The stateless economy, local economies, and the state

NOTE: This is the second draft. This post was motivated and informed by THIS discussion on Facebook. 

The Multitude movement enters a new era, where its processes can be supported by truly p2p infrastructures. Bitcoin is now a well-known symbol of a new breed of exchange systems, called cryptocurrencies, money without the bank, stateless money, a new currency that looks and feels like your ATM card, but it is entirely decentralized, under the control of those who use it.

Peer-to-peer is a new pattern that emerges in almost all the spheres of human activity, from culture, to governance, to the creation and the distribution of goods and services. It is the underlying pattern of the current leap in the emancipation of the multitude (see the multitude manifesto). Bitcoin is the poster child of p2p exchange systems, but the same technology is now expanding and promising much more:

From Ethereum project: Satoshi Nakamoto's development of Bitcoin in 2009 has often been hailed as a radical development in money and currency, being the first example of a digital asset which simultaneously has no backing or "intrinsic value" and no centralized issuer or controller. However, another, arguably more important, part of the Bitcoin experiment is the underlying blockchain technology as a tool of distributed consensus, and attention is rapidly starting to shift to this other aspect of Bitcoin. Commonly cited alternative applications of blockchain technology include using on-blockchain digital assets to represent custom currencies and financial instruments ("colored coins"), the ownership of an underlying physical device ("smart property"), non-fungible assets such as domain names ("Namecoin"), as well as more complex applications involving having digital assets being directly controlled by a piece of code implementing arbitrary rules ("smart contracts") or even blockchain-based "decentralized autonomous organizations" (DAOs). What Ethereum intends to provide is a blockchain with a built-in fully fledged Turing-complete programming language that can be used to create "contracts" that can be used to encode arbitrary state transition functions, allowing users to create any of the systems described above, as well as many others that we have not yet imagined, simply by writing up the logic in a few lines of code. (See the source). 

For those who think that all this technology is nothing if it doesn't live on its own support, on a p2p Internet, take a look at the MaidSafe project, FNF and many others like them. MaidSafe is special because it comes with its own economy, it's own ways to incentivize the development and maintenance of its physical infrastructure, and has a cleaver launch and growth model which takes advantage of the existing infrastructure.  

We are creating new economic processes with their own exchange systems that know no borders, no political boundaries, and no central authority (which doesn't mean no rules or chaos). We are creating a stateless economy. How states respond to it? How does it relate to local economies?

One of the most interesting observations in relation with this new pattern that deploys globally on p2p infrastructures is the emergence of a global multitude. It is a very diverse multitude. This diversity is rooted in values and principles rather than in local customs. We speak about it as different cultures of online communities. These new social structures transcend the state, which has no effective means to control them. We are witnessing the emergence of new social structures, that come with their own support mechanisms.  

Will states turn against these trends as a reaction of self-preservation? Yes, see for example a list of states that ban bitcoins. I predict that this opposition will grow stronger in the near future, but no state can bury an idea whose time has come. No state can oppose something that benefits a large percentage of its  citizens, especially when the current economic model is evidently unsustainable, morally bankrupt, openly criticized, in decline. What should governments tell their youth looking for a job? The answers can be read in the daily news in Greece, Spain, Italy, France, USA, ... and the list is growing longer every year. 

There is antagonism between the state and this new Multitude outburst, with its p2p practices. Do we see a solution out of this standoff? Institutions are not eternal. They have a life cycle as any other thing. Nation-states were created in the 19th century. The state is an instrument for local communities. People are above the state. The proof is that we, the people, have outlived all the social structures that have existed throughout our history. In the future we will form new social structures and will find new ways to sustain our local communities. How are local communities adapting today?  

The stateless economy is not in contradiction with the local economy

I am drawing my conclusions from my work on the Open Value Network (OVN) model within the SENSORICA community, a pilot project for long tail peer production. 

Forces and mechanisms behind the emergence of local economies

The impact of human activity on our planet is now visible, measurable, which makes us realize that our way of living is outgrowing the Earth's capacity. Pollution and degradation of natural ecosystems, the energy crisis, and an unstable geopolitical situation are aligning to favor the development of diversified local economies. New technologies for renewable energy, for new materials, automation, robotics, and 3D printing, make local production for local consumption economically viable.  

The relevance of proximity and its role in the self-organization of local economies 

The Internet allows coordination and collaboration at the global scale. Design and simulation activities have been virtualized. Engineers can now collaborate online on designs that can be virtually tested and simulated. Innovation has gone virtual, it has been delocalized. This allows the existence of new modes of innovation supported by a new socio-economic structure, the open source community. But making stuff (manufacturing hardware for example) requires local physical resources (materials, tools and equipment, space,...), uses local processes (digital fabrication, assembling, ...), relying on local know how (which cannot be formalized, externalized, and easily passed to others through a medium like the Internet). The Internet doesn't obliterate the need for locality and proximity when it comes to production and distribution of material goods. Locality anchors processes to a specific location, the need for proximity ties different processes into a local economy.  

From global commons to local economies.

This is how the new economy is shaping. It builds on another new reality: 

Knowledge is abundant, know how and capacity of production are scarce and require proximity.

Knowledge is abundant because one idea becomes available to the entire planet as soon as it is shared on the Internet. That single idea can be shared with everyone on the planet at once. There is no limited quantity or debit, it can be accessed anytime and people don't need to take turns to access it. Everyone can have it, together with other ideas produced by other people. That's abundance. Thus, the Internet is a growing repository of ideas that people use to generate new knowledge, which is itself shared, and so on. Sharing is part of the process because it makes the whole system more efficient. Sharing is also imposed by a minority of individuals who have a natural propensity for it. Since ideas usually pop up in different locations at small intervals of time, someone will eventually share something, which obliterates someone else's wish to keep it a secret. This global swarm of ideas and knowledge building is actually a new mode of innovation, open source innovation, supported by a new social-economic structure, the open source community. 

Open source communities, which are virtual and stateless, are now the most innovative organizations. 3D printing has been democratized by open hardware communities, which continue to lead in 3D printing innovation, despite a few corporate successes. The same can be said for automation and control systems, with Arduino being the most popular example. DIY Drones is where the innovation in UAV technology happens. The dominant mode of innovation is now global, decentralized, stateless, increasingly using it's own physical infrastructure (a network of fablabs, makerspaces, co-working spaces), increasingly using its own funding mechanisms (crowdfunding and peer lending). 

The abundance of knowledge goes hand in hand with the creation of a global knowledge commons. This global knowledge commons gets materialized into local economies, using local know how and local capacity of production. This materialization requires a special type of infrastructure and new economic models. Let's illustrate this potential with two examples: 

Transportation: 
Your local community needs adapted means of transportation? You can open a Local motors shop and grow a community around it to produce and distribute cars, locally. You continue to be plugged into the global Local motors community in order to benefit from the stream of open innovation that comes out of it. You can also join other similar communities like Wikispeed and the OScar in order to incorporate even more potential. There is no intellectual property around these car designs, they are open source and everything you build on top of these designs becomes open source by default, goes back into this global commons. Manufacturing a car, its distribution, and services around it forms a local economic activity. In order to make that happen, a tight and synergistic relation must be established between the global open innovation process for designs and the local production processes. This relation insures that the feedback (for product improvement, diversification) that comes from the consumer, in direct relation with the local manufacturer and service provider, is translated into technical problems and passed on to the global open source community of designers. The relation is established and maintained by channels of value between the local and the global/virtual layers. An example is a system of revenue sharing from the local to the global/virtual layer of innovation. This is what the Open Value Network (OVN) model is trying to achieve, with its contribution accounting system.  

Agriculture: 
You need to improve food production in your region? Join Farmhack, which provides open source solutions. Open source ecology offers tools not only for agriculture, but also for the construction of your farm and even for the construction of an entire village (see also Appropedia). There are similar online communities for indoor growing, automated greenhouses, hydroponics and aquaponics (see HAPI)... Name it, you'll find it. These sources for knowledge and designs are complemented by other tools and services for resource sharing and management, like landshare and shareearth (for land), neighborgoods (for tools and equipment), plantcatching (for plants and seeds), as well as more complex tools for mapping and economic modeling (localfoodsystems), etc. This new ecosystem needs to come tightly together into an open value network which allows resource flows between different nodes. Local food systems are reorganizing along a different logic. 


New types of organizations are needed in order to orchestrate and incentivize the development of the global commons and to funnel it into sustainable local economies. I bet on the Open Value Network (OVN) model and on organizations like SENSORICA, because in my opinion they take into consideration how innovation, production, and distribution are restructuring. 

Within OVNs a need (local or not) is translated into a problem, which comes with its own incentive system (monetary or others), to be solved by a global, stateless community of developers, into open source solutions. The solution is materialized into a product or a service at the point of origin of the problem, and distributed to those in need, in exchange of some form of benefit/revenue. The revenue gets redistributed to ALL the participants in proportion to their contributions, using a contribution accounting system (records contributions) and a benefit redistribution algorithm (turns contributions into benefits). Since the solution is open source, others can also distribute it as is, or as a modified/improved/remixed version, also giving back to the original contributors in order to buy their loyalty and to sustain the open innovation channel, in order to sustain the link between the local economy organized around production, distribution and servicing, and the global and virtual layer of open innovation.

New infrastructures are required to support these organizations and their processes. OVNs are supported by a network resource planning and contribution accounting system (NRP-CAS). These tools will move on truly p2p infrastructures like Ethereum. It is important to realize that these new economic systems would be dysfunctional if they were obliged to use classical means of exchange. Imagine a project with thousands of participants and a long tail contribution distribution. The redistribution of revenue to all the contributors for every market exchange (every sale), as prescribed by the OVN model, would require thousands of micro-payments across the globe. Also, imagine thousands of individuals crowdfunding a new equipment used in a project. This would also require thousands of cash transfers from all the contributors into a unique bank account, from which the purchase is made. Bitcoin and other currencies built on the blockchain technology improve the ability of OVNs to incentivize open innovation and to source its processes. 

Open source innovation has been proven to be the most effective mode of innovation. It is supported by open source communities, which are by nature open and decentralized, global and stateless. Innovation drives our modern economy, therefore open source innovation is here to stay, and the rest organizes around it. In order to close the cycle from idea to the market, new types of organizations have been created, based on the OVN model or others hybrid models (for more on these hybrid models see Open Source Hardware meets the p2p economy). New infrastructures have been created to tie everything together into self-sufficient value systems, into open value networks. These infrastructures are designed to support the p2p pattern, reducing the role of the state. Local communities have new alternatives for thriving, which require a radical redefinition of the state.  

Some states have banned cryptocurrencies, which reduces the ability of open value networks (tying global/virtual open source innovation systems to the local economy) to form and develop, which in turn takes away viable alternatives for local communities. 

Without embracing stateless p2p practices we don't actualize the full potential of the new digital technology in making our economy more effective, efficient, and sustainable. Without embracing stateless p2p practices we will see the collapse of our local communities, as the state gradually collapses. States that are fighting stateless p2p processes are essentially denying their local communities access to the p2p economy, an alternative that already shows clear signs to be effective.  

By Tiberius Brastaviceanu

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AllOfUs

Governance and legal structure for commons-based peer production

Governance and legal structures for commons-based peer production (CBPP) are evolving very rapidly, but we are still far from having something that is fully compatible with CBPP practices, to make a coherent CBPP system.

CBPP communities that create exchange value (products and services to be distributed/exchanged on the market) are usually hybrid or mixed structures. The most obvious examples are ecosystems like Arduino, which are comprised of a classical structure (the Arduino company) in the middle of an open source hardware (OSHW) community. The Arduino company incorporates functions for production and distribution, but it also plays an important role of facilitation and coordination of the open OSWH network around it. The 3D robotics (the company) and DIY Drones (the community) form a similar ecosystem. See Open source hardware meets the p2p economy blog post.

Other CBPP communities are organized as cooperatives. This choice is justified by the more democratic nature of these types of organizations. I expressed my opinions on this structure in the Are Coops Outdated in a Network Age article.

The p2p era begins

By AllOfUs

Capitalism fights us now

This post was motivated by a documentary that you can watch on Youtube: Counterfeiting. 

First, they don't take you seriously. Later, they laugh at you. Then they fight you, and after you win. I think the new economy (call it multitude or p2p) is one step away from going mainstream.

When society reaches a tipping point, all the absurdities of the old system become apparent. This time around, our global society is undergoing profound transformations because the new technology introduces new possibilities, which in turn affect the way we produce and distribute value. But the conflict between those invested in the old system and the proponents of change opens along ethical issues and values. When did we start to call sharing of designs, counterfeiting?

If you read history books you will not be able to miss the importance of diffusion of technology across continents. Marco Polo is depicted as a hero, because he embarked on a 24 year long and very dangerous voyage from Venice to China and back, and enriched Europe with new technology from the East.  How can a culture consider Marco Polo a hero because he copied the Chinese, but at the same time consider the Chinese thieves, because they copy technology and designs from the west? There is nothing important to understand there, other than the fact that our modern society is undergoing a crisis, a major transformation.

Copying and sharing are essential to development. If an economy starts to vilify essential things like copying and sharing, it is just a matter of time before it collapses, because by denying essentials it will start to accumulate ineficiencies.

Why do we need a contribution accounting system?

First published on 3 January 2014 and last modified on 8 January 2018

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NOTE: Before 2017 SENSORICA used the expression ''value accounting system''. The current expression in use is ''contribution accounting system''. See more on the OVN wiki. The origin of this modification is a redefinition of value, inspired by Tibi's essay ''Scale of social structures''.

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With the advent of the Internet and the development of new digital technologies, the economy is following a trend of decentralization. The most innovative environments are open source communities and peer production is on the rise. The crowd innovates and produces. But the crowd is organized in loose networks, it is geographically dispersed, and contributions to projects follow a long tail distribution. What are the possible reward mechanisms in this new economy?

Our thesis is that in order to reward all the participants in p2p economic activity, and thus to incentivise contributions and make participation sustainable for everyone, we need to do contribution accounting: record everyone's contribution, evaluate these contributions, and calculate every participant's fair share. This method for redistribution of benefits must be established at the beginning of the economic process, in a transparent way. It constitutes a contract among participants, and it allows them to estimate their rewards in relation with their efforts. We call this the contribution accounting system.

For the rest of this article we will try to explain why a contribution accounting system is needed in a more decentralized economy, and unavoidable in a p2p economy.

What should we do with dark IP?

Answer: Open it! 

My friend Layne Hartsell sent me a link to an article on Yahoo news "Anti-Troll' Marblar Unites NASA Patents, Samsung to Crowdsource New Products".

Marblar CEO Daniel Perez said that although many companies' research and development departments spend millions of dollars on such patents, more than 95 percent of them sit unused.
"They're just kind of laying dormant," he told ABC News. "But what if people saw the patents for a special type of material from NASA or a unique laser from Oxford? What are some new ways that we can incorporate these patents into new products?"

I digested the text and put some comments on it, you can access it through Diigo HERE.

Marblar is a new tool for mining and valuing dark IP. What value Marblar brings to the market? They bring dark IP to the surface, from different sources, and they put in one place. The huge database of patents also gets sorted and refined using the users of the website (so they crowdsource that work too). They also ease licensing/royalties agreements between at least 3 parties: the owners of the IP (NASA for example), applications developers (the crowd), and companies that have the capability to put products on the market, (Samsung for example).

I see here old school mentality trying to adapt to the new. These are people who still value IP, who don't understand the open innovation game, who don't realize its potential, or who simply can't play it in their current setting. They have spent a lot of money developing all sorts of technologies and are now trying to value them in a different way. In other words, they feel that the IP they're sitting on surpasses their capacity to put it into practice, to develop its full potential, and they are essentially outsourcing (by crowdsourcing) applications development. This is already recognizing that they (closed corporations) aren't innovative enough. This is recognizing that the creativity economy will be driven by the multitude (the crowd, in their terms). But they are still holding on to their patents because they feel they should get a return on their investment and, most importantly, because they don't know how, or they can't play the open game.

If you ask my opinion, I would put all this dark IP into the public domain, especially the one developed with public funds. This will do a lot more good for the local economy!!

If I was a large company like Samsong, I would re-purpose my business core into a value network management group. Don't need intermediaries like Marblar. Samsong has the resources to become a locus of open innovation, an attractor of bright minds, by providing the space, the equipment, and the proper incentives for an innovative ecosystem to grow around their mission.

But I am not a large company and I am with the 99%, which is now merging into open value networks, powerful (I believe) economic entities, capable of bringing ideas to market. Watch the video below where I explain the open value network model.



Open value networks like SENSORICA also have strategies to mine dark IP. You can take a look at our approach in THIS document.

In my opinion, Marblar is only a transitory system. This model is missing something extremely important, the dynamics of open innovation, which is beneficial for society at large, but also for individuals who engage in it IF we give ourselves the proper tools, like a value accounting system, and a p2p production framework like the one proposed by the open value network model. Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see that Marblar implements a rudimentary value accounting system with their "marble" points, which has the effect to turn competitive product development into large scale collaborative product development. This is precisely the dynamics we're nurturing in entities like SENSORICA, to turn product development into a long tail process.

But systems like Marbler are setting up a candy economy (see THIS post for the definition) and are furthering the netarchical capitalism agenda. SENSORICA is setting up a commons-based peer production system, in which ALL revenue is redistributed in a FAIR way to ALL the participants. The Marblar scheme treats participants as resources, as the crowd, as a mass that can be organized to produce new ideas for the big guys to exploit and rip all the profits, giving a candy back to the crowd (see my post Why I don't like crowdsourcing). SENSORICA is empowering, see participants as equipotent peers, is inclusive, is fair. Which one feels better? Which one do you think will grow faster?

The new world will not be uniform or monolithic. As in the old world, there will be oppositions or antagonistic systems in the new world too. Netarchical capitalism, which is in fact a new form of feudalism is gradually defining itself and growing in opposition to peer production. Those who own our most important resources are looking for ways to transfer their assets into the new economy and to preserve their power. They are building platforms that they can control, and are hoping that the rest of us will get trapped in there or become dependent. The p2p or the multitude movement is building p2p infrastructures parallel (that fulfill the same functions) to these centralized and controlled platforms, with the hope to free the individual. We need to distinguish between being able to co-create value using a platform owned by someone, and being able to co-create value in an environment that is not owned or controlled by anyone, as autonomous and equipotent peers. In both cases we co-create value, we collaborate, but I prefer not having someone to randomly decide if I'm in or out...

By t!b!

Open source hardware meets the p2p economy

We are at this particular moment in history when we can say with certainty that open source hardware (OSHW) is economically viable. The video below tells the success story of Adafruit Industries. Barely formed, this business model relying on OSHW might already be obsolete. A new model, the open value network, is already threatening to transform the landscape of the open source economy. This article explains why.

Most people find it counter-intuitive that companies that sell high tech open source products can survive in a highly competitive capitalistic environment, giving away their recipes, AND allowing (even encouraging) everyone else to copy them, WITH THE RIGHT TO MAKE COMMERCIAL USE. If you don't believe that this is possible stop wasting your time arguing against it. It is real, it is here, you better understand it fast before the world becomes a strange place for you.

The business around open source innovation cannot be learned in school. It belongs to a new economic paradigm. Old arguments don't apply because the semantics and the logic are not the same. Some time ago, we published the article How to play the open game in the present and future economy, which tries to capture the essence of sustainable open source innovation. This article is constantly revised, so we encourage you to revisit it from time to time.   

The most successful ventures built around OSHW, like Arduino, Adafruit, Sparkfun, etc., can only be understood within their larger ecosystem. We can identify two main structures: a commercial entity and a community. The commercial entity is a traditional legal form, usually a corporation or a co-op. It takes care of manufacturing, quality assurance, structures and integrates the feedback from the community into new products, nurtures the community, performs legal functions, integrates all the transactional logistics (storage, shipping, payment), and provides services. The community plays different roles: early adapters for products testing and providing feedback, consumers, propose new features, spread the buzz, educate new members of the community and even provide technical support, etc.

What we see in the case of OSHW is a greater integration between a commercial entity and its market. Traditional commercial entities maintain a provider-consumer relationship with their markets: some "smart" individuals within the firm study what consumers might need, pass that to a team of engineers to make it, and put it for sale with a team of marketing wizards who will make almost anything look like the perfect fit. If the firm was right about the need, which is not always the case, customers pay for it and take it, and ask for service if needed. Service is provided by the commercial entity in exchange of customer loyalty. In this approach, the consumer is educated about what he needs and wants, after the "smart guys" have made the market study, decided on the general need, and offered a one-fit-all solution. This is obviously the extreme case, or what was widely practiced 20-15 years ago.  Today, traditional corporations build communities around their brands, and they try to absorb more feedback from their consumers. In the case of OSHW, individual consumers drive design and development.

This integration between the commercial entity and the market in the prevalent OSHW models is made possible by the internet technology. But as we saw above, there is still a clear distinction between the commercial entity and the community. For example, a community member who proposes a new design that becomes commercially successful is not rewarded with a fair share of the profits made by the commercial entity. I call this the "candy economy", meaning that the members of the community around a OSHW company stick with it and contribute mostly for intrinsic motivations, and a small present (a candy) or a token of recognition from time to time.

Is this division between the commercial entity and the community necessary? Or is it an impediment for a better arrangement?

The open value network model abolishes the distinction between 

the commercial entity and the community!

The open value network is a model for commons-based peer production. See SENSORICA as an example.

read SENSORICA business model 2.0

The diagram above depicts the structure of an open value network. The physical and the virtual infrastructure, as well as the tools and the equipment used in R&D and in production are part of a pool of shareables, legally owned by a Custodian, which is bound by a promise to act in the interest of the community, obeying a set of predefined rules set by the community. All the information and the knowledge generated by the open value network become part of the commons (there is no intellectual property). Affiliates (agents) rely on their know how to create value (products), using these resources. This value (products) is exchanged on the market for some form of revenue. The revenue is redistributed among all affiliates in proportion to their contributions, using a contribution accounting system. The barrier to participation to production processes is very low. In that sense, the value network is open. Production is so widely defined that it encompasses activities usually performed by members of the commercial entity and the community, in the prevalent OSHW model cited above. Therefore, the two structures, the community and the commercial entity are merged together at the level of production.

The open value network model distinguishes between different types of agents, based on their degree of involvement/participation. Thus, we can distinguish between active affiliates (those who take part in value creation) and unaffiliated observers (those who know what's going on in the value network). If we go back to the prevalent OSHW model cited above, we can say that the owners and the employees of the commercial entity, as well as the community members who provide feedback and new design ideas, or who actively propagate information about products are ALL active affiliates.

We also need to note that active affiliates are those individuals who participate in value creation AND who decide to log their contributions within the contribution accounting system. Participation in the contribution accounting system is NOT mandatory. Someone can elect to contribute to the open value network without expecting something in return. Thus, the open value network integrates a gift economy with a market-oriented economy.

That is all fine on the production side, but what about the distribution side, or the market side?
All the transactional logistics (for the exchanges between the producing network and its market) and the legal aspects associated with it are moved into what sencoricans call the "Exchange firm", which can be embodied as a non-profit, with the sole purpose of serving the open value network.

So why is the open value network a menace to current OSHW business models? Because by abolishing the distinction between the commercial entity and the community, value networks like SENSORICA threaten to drain these communities associated with OSHW-based firms of their talent!   

More on the open value network model

The open value network model departs from capitalism for 3 main reasons:

• No division between owners and workers, between those who own the means of production and those who provide work. The commons takes care of that. 
• No clearly defined frontier between the system of design-production-distribution and the market, the system rewards every contributor to production in proportion to his/her contribution. The contribution accounting system takes care of that. 
• Re-appropriation of labor. Active affiliates who are involved in production are not exchanging their labor for wages, they are, in some sense, accumulating equity, which gives them rights to the future revenue generated market transactions. Thus the individual is always the owner of his work. 

The contribution accounting system allows open value networks to go beyond the gift economy AND beyond the candy economy.

By t!b!

By AllOfUs

Please donate!

Leadership? What's that?

I am trying to understand how networks respond to problems. I use the presentation below to structure my understanding. I am pursuing this reflection in the context of SENSORICA, which is an open value network. The presentation will continue to evolve...

See also the discussion on Next Edge.

By t!b!

By AllOfUs

Multitude, or p2p initiatives get funded in Europe

Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation
Fabrizio Sestini By

AllOfUs

Revolution 2.0: structure and processes

On thestructureandprocessesofrevolution2.0 discussiondocument from Suresh Fernando

By AllOfUs

How value networks can articulate with the present economy - an example in food preparation and distribution

Yesterday I had a conversation with my friend Paul about the advantages of open value networks (OVN) over classical structures, including co-ops.

picture comes from this website

Context

Paul is involved in #occupy Montreal and they are now organizing a center for preparation and distribution of vegan food in Montreal. They also want it to be very local. This operation would require gathering products from different local farmers, cooking/preparing, packaging and distributing raw or prepared food. 

Question

Should they create a co-op or an OVN? 

My answer 

They can have a co-op embedded within a value network. 

The role of power relations in a p2p economy

The #occupy movement, which is a surface manifestation of a deeper Multitude movement, is in fact a refutation of power. Not only of the "power in place", i.e. big banks, governments, etc. but of what we call "instituted power", the kind of power your boss has over you. The consensus decision making process, a form of direct democracy that has been adopted by the #occupy movement, is the most obvious affirmation of this refutation of instituted power relations, which until now has been seen as a necessary structuring mechanisms of society. 

Where is this coming from? Was it there before? Is this pure Utopia? Or is there something fundamental happening, which makes instituted power relations lose their importance?  

We often hear that instituted power relations are tolerated by people because they are believed to be essential to organize us into efficient and effective groups, to achieve complex goals. Some say that without instituted power relations society would simply brake down, collapse. Go tell that to an anarchist... 

Value Networks, about commercializing their products

We take the example of a specific value network, SENSORICA.

The problem

One of SENSORICA’s main reason for existence is to provide for its members/affiliates the means of subsistence and well-being. This is to say that the surplus value that is created by the network must be exchanged on the market against other values, which are to be redistributed to participants based on their relative contribution. This redistribution is done according to the value accounting system, to which all members must adhere. The goal here is to establish a channel of distribution for SENSORICA’s products. The problem is that there are laws and regulations which makes it difficult for a non-legal entity like SENSORICA to sell certain products. Someone must take the blame if those products don't respect established standards, and our society doesn't know how to interface with things like SENSORICA.

Solution 

In the current situation, we need to create legally recognizable forms to channel products through them. This is actually the role Tactus Scientific Inc. plays for the Mosquito Scientific Instrument System, designed for the scientific instrument market segment.

Re-Occupation 2.0?

What do we do next?  The question for revolutionaries in North America is to figure out how to activate the anaesthetized. But why are we anaesthetized? There is a realization, at least to some extent, that we are the ones responsible for the global ills; the reification of individualism and the exporting of capitalism and ‘democracy’, yet the vast majority of people are too ‘comfortable’ to do anything more than nod their head when presented with the evidence. Why is this? In short, most people don’t feel enough pain on a personal level to motivate them to take risks... If this is so, do we need revolution?

Yes, because we are living within a lie, and this cannot be healthy...

         Read more...

By Suresh
(more notes by Shresh)

How to play the open game in the present and future economy

This is the fifth draft; it will evolve based on your feedback. First published on 6/19/12. Last modified on Jan 30, 2026. Come back later for more...  

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More and more solutions to our problems today come in the form of open artifacts, i.e open source software and hardware, created by online communities and networks. Traditionally, most of these communities have relied on voluntary participation, i.e. the developers do not expect a direct or immediate tangible reward for their contributions. These open artifacts have been regarded as marginal, mostly intended for amateurs and hobbyists. How can one expect serious things to come out of loose organizations that don't use the prescribed governance model and methodology, and don't have access to a large budget? At least this was the unadvised belief, until we realized that critical infrastructure, like the Internet, runs mostly on open source software, created and maintained by these unorthodox organizations. Ingenuity, the helicopter drone, part of the Perseverance mission to the planet Mars, operates on Linux, which is an open source operating system. Bitcoin, runs on open source software and is supported by an open group of people (miners), who can be practically anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Since Bitcoin was launch in 2009, no one has hacked it, despite the astronomical reward, ranging in the tens of billions of dollars, if we only consider the abandoned accounts of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the network. So some open artifacts developed by unorthodox organizations are pretty serious, highly secure, mission critical, or operating at global scale. There are also lots of crappy ones, as there are crappy products offered by serious companies.

What I call playing the open game is developing open artifacts (based on open source technologies) relying on unorthodox organizations and being able to make a living.

There are a few important components to the open game... 

 

First, there's the intellectual property regime. Open source means that no one can create a temporary economic monopoly on a particular solution, as it is the case with products based on patented technologies. If one cannot control the artifact how can one capture value or generate wealth? 

In the most simple terms, how can one make money developing open source technologies. My first reaction to this question is to point to the obvious: 

• IBM has invested billions of US dollars in Linux and other open source technologies. ref
• Google has gained mobile dominance by opening Android, the mobile operating system. 
• Tesla has engaged in a hybrid IP strategy, i.e. open source patented. 

The second order economic model 

It becomes possible to generate wealth while developing open source technologies, if the business model is not simplistic and/or linear. In most viable cases, whatever is open source is not the product, but by open sourcing some technology in the IP portfolio, these companies produce some effects within their ecosystem, which they can harvest or leverage for their core business. In the case of Google, opening Android increased its adoption rate, while propagating some core Google functionalities, thus putting Google services in billions of mobile devices, which then could be monetized using Google's core business model. We also see a second order kickback pattern with online services like Facebook, where free access is given to a digital service (search or connecting and interacting with people), while making money from selling users' generated data or attention. So we need to stop thinking about business as a simple and linear process, as simply transactional.

A similar example of second order economic model, extended to a whole community or ecosystem, is Tiki, an open source wiki CMS groupware? The wealth generation model is similar to Red Hat, the poster child, based on support, training, and consulting services around the core open artifact, which is offered for free. 

 

At this point, I find that is it important to raise to your awareness the fact that the wealth generation model is not the same when the technology is software or hardware. It is beyond the scope of this post to dive deeper into this distinction, but if you're interested, we can discuss in the comments.

Note that I have deliberately use the term open artifact instead of product and the expression wealth generation or economic model instead of business model, to avoid cognitive interference. When we say product people think about commodity, something that you can buy/sell on the market. But you cannot sell the Linux operating system (an open artifact), which defies the law of supply and demand, as it is an abundant, non-rivalrous resource, since its reproduction (copy/paste) and distribution (download) costs are negligible. The case of open source hardware is not the same, but similar. The costs for reproduction and distribution are high for material artifacts, but since everyone has access to the design, anyone can fabricated it locally, (see more on distributed fabrication and DIY - Do-It-yourself), making use of digital fabrication techniques (3D printing, CNC, etc.).

Beyond money

So what about the expression wealth generation? 

When we say wealth most people think about money. When engaging in open source development, people are seeking other forms of wealth, for what they are in themselves (or for a later conversion into money, monetization). For example, someone may want to contribute to an open source project to learn new skills, to develop new relations with people that have specific skills or that share specific values, or to build reputation. In some cases, when money is introduced as a motivation factor in open projects the social cohesion breaks down.

 

So playing the open game requires a renunciation of mechanisms of control of intellectual property, which entails the refusal to create a temporary monopoly and thus the adoption of more sophisticated economic models or the adoption of different forms of wealth or new forms of value. But the open games deploys within a very different organizational environment, to which we already alluded above, as most of the time the open artifact emerges from open organizations or networks. 

p2p as a new organization paradigm 

Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of new economic models that brake away from the gift economy, directly rewarding those who contribute (with time, financial capital, social capital, ...) to open projects. The open artifact is gradually becoming sustainable. The first step in this direction can be illustrated by Open Source Ecology, which designs open hardware for farming, construction and manufacturing. The designs are  entirely open and free, but the Open Source Ecology community is not interested in commodification, i.e. market exchanges, their designs made with DIY (Do It Yourself) in mind, destined to be produced by the user, or very close to the point of use. In the case of Open Source Ecology their model for subsistence is based on revenues in fiat currency, from donations or educational services.

Open crowdsourcing is another model in which designers, part of an (open) community, are rewarded to complete a project. This scheme doesn't only rely on donations or voluntary participation, since those who contribute are rewarded in exchange with some symbolic gifts (tokens of recognition), reputation tokens, job opportunities, etc. Arduino is an example of such model, a hybrid between the open (value) network OVN and a traditional business, which relies on a vast community of enthusiasts to propose new designs, find and eliminate bugs, engage in promotion, etc. 

There are also closed and non-transparent crowdsourcing initiatives, such as prizes, in which only the best contributors are rewarded. Contributors are often placed in competition against each other. The resultant designs or artifacts are closed and remain under the control of the initiator. We are definitely against this new form of human exploitation, as you can see in this post. 

Sensorica is based on a more radical model, referred to as an open value network (OVN), which implements commons-based peer design production. It is in fact a mix between a gift economy and a transaction-based, or market economy. Sensorica can produces open artifacts that can either be exchange on the market or disseminated as DIY open designs. Various forms of rewards (including revenue from market exchanges or donations) are redistributed to all contributors in proportion to their contributions, based on a Benefit Redistribution Algorithm, which is at the heart of the Network Resource Planning and Contribution Accounting system (NRP-CAS). 

P2P

a post by Poor Richard

What is peer-to-peer (P2P)  culture?
P2P culture is the post-capitalist framework that makes the most sense to me. It includes but transcends capitalism; and encompasses many hybrids of open and closed, public and private, hierarchical and egalitarian associations.

photo by Ian McCalister

P2P emphasizes cooperation, openness, fairness, transparency, information symmetry, sustainability, accountability, and innovation motivated by the full range of human aspirations even including, but definitely not limited to, personal financial gain.

I call p2p a “post-capitalist framework” because many of us are quite happy to abandon capitalism’s euphemisms and reductio ad absurdum altogether. However, other 99%-ers still consider it a major factor in lifting millions from poverty. They would rather reform and adapt it to humanitarian and ecological ends than to abandon it for something novel. I think it is entirely possible to craft forms of capitalism which “do no harm”, and I think there is ample room in the p2p community for such “diversity of tactics.”
Read more on Richard's blog... 

By AllOfUs

Crowdsource the solution to the student tuition problem!

How do we educate our population? 
Where do we get the resources necessary to do it?

Every society on this planet struggles with these fundamental questions. The education problem evolves in time and as technology advances, as societies change, and we are constantly trying to find better solutions for it. The student tuition crisis in Quebec/Canada is seen as part of this process of finding solutions (although this crisis must be seen within an even larger socio-economic crisis). It is described as a conflict between two social factions who have different views on the problem and who propose incompatible solutions. On one side we have a coalition of student associations, now enlarged by other non-student organizations, and on the other side the Liberal Government of Jean Charest.

We shoud NEVER let CISPA pass and if it does we MUST rebel

By AllOfUs

The Meta Plan

The Meta Plan (see also the Diigo annotated link- it will save you some time reading) is in essence the Multitude Project.

This is the Meta Plan, the plan for building the We Plan...
We are not disorganized but disconnected. We have self-selected and self-organized and self-lead our prior efforts. We must coalesce these efforts into one global organism. One organism with many parts, and a single purpose.
The plan starts with our common purpose...
There are answers. Many have been working on the pieces for years. We must put these answers together in once place: the We Plan.
Some will work on design for technologies; some on design for social structures; some on the logistics systems required to deliver the people, information, and materials required under the plan, some on the architecture of the Plan itself.
Just as we collectively and continuously build Wikipedia, we will collectively build the We Plan.
The We Plan will be developed both top-down and bottom-up simultaneously. Some will tie the pieces together. Some will flesh out the details of the pieces. The entire Plan will be visible to everyone all the time.
The We Plan will be a living plan.
Together, We will comprise the We Movement.
As the We Movement builds, We will begin implementing the plan. We will find resources. We will make the parts. We will educate. We will build.
We will have a movement with the force to make political change where necessary, to pool resources and knowledge, to stop destruction and looting by the few against the many, to remake the world in the image of our highest dreams.

The world is waking us and coming together!

By AllOfUs

Commanding Heights

[The name of this post was inspired by the Commanding Heights documentary.]

Four years ago we launched the Multitude Project with the aim of understanding the effects of the new digital technology on our socio-economic institutions. We convinced ourselves that humanity was fast approaching a transition point, and that a new social order was about to emerge. But, unfortunately, we now realize that the future doesn’t look as unidirectional as we would like it to be.

Three possible worlds

One possibility, the one we would like to see materializing, is another step of emancipation of the multitude. It is a world in which individuals have greater control over what they want to become, over the value they produce, in all dimensions of value and, as a matter of fact, a world in which individuals have greater control over their own lives. It is a continuation of an undeniable historical trend of emancipation, as the multitude became more cohesive with the advance of communication and coordination technologies. We have finally reached the era of real-time peer-to-peer coordination, with practically no spatial barriers. The multitude is now more coherent than ever. It is able to generate very powerful large-scale effects, surpassing the containing forces of any social system previously designed to constrain it. The will of the people can now be expressed in massive global waves. The #occupy movement is one recent example of such manifestations.

Government as a platform

The multitude stops engaging the government for services and uses the new technology to become the government.

This video is a very good illustration of a thread that runs through the Multitude movement, which is that power relations lose their importance as peer-to-peer coordination and collaboration become possible. The new world will be built on value-based relations!  

By AllOfUs

I DON'T PAY! How corrupt governments commit suicide by cutting open their own veins.

Some corrupt governments go too far, forgetting their dependence on the will of the people to stay alive. Today, in the age of the Internet, the multitude has many, many ways to shut down governments. Not only by protesting or striking, but by cutting critical resources. Today's multitude is a highly coordinated one. It is also a highly creative one.

This video illustrates a very powerful idea. This is just the beginning!



Read also our previous posts:

• How fragile is the system?
• A deal for the elite.

By AllOfUs

New economy - how things will be designed, produced and distributed in the future

Here's another example of the newly emerging pattern of design, production and distribution.

We are glad to see that our vision of the new economy is finally materializing. In 2008 we proposed the Discovery Network concept (see the post describing the initial motivation behind it). In 2010 we launched our first pilot project for the new economy a commons-based peer production system the Matchmaking Device System. It failed...  : (    but we learned a lot.

In 2011 we launched the second pilot project SENSORICA, which evolved into an open, decentralized and self-organizing value network.  SENSORICA is increasing in value and potential since its creation. 

Also in 2011, the know how developed within  SENSORICA spilled over to glocal food systems. In Ohio, USA local food systems are now morphing into value networks, see Greener Acres.

Furthermore, early this year we initiated another project in Montreal, through the #occupy movement, to implement value networks in clothing design and manufacturing. This is the #occupy Fashion project.

In the following weeks we will publish a few videos and documents detailing how value networks form, self-organize, and operate. This information will be put into context based on our new understanding of the new economy.

By t!b!

Where is the #occupy movement now?

Today I dared to look at Google Trends of the search term "occupy". See bellow what I found. You can do the search yourself here.

In this post The multitude movement limited by the pace of cultural change and of general understanding of open movements I wrote:

I've always seen the #occupy movement as a manifestation of this multitude constructive revolution, which is much broader, touching almost all aspects of our activity. Most of these affected aspects don't have a clear manifestation on the public scene, they are just lurking beneath the surface, unseen by the untrained eye. We've witnessed surface waves in the past, starting with the End the Fed movement in 2008, which sparked the TeaParty movement, to the so-called Twitter revolution in 2009 in the Republic of Moldova, to the 2009-2010 Green Revolution in Iran, to the Arab Spring, and to the 15-M movement in Spain. Is the #occupy everywhere the last wave able to tip the establishment over? I don't think so. But every one of these waves leaves permanent marks, which will affect the next wave, and the way the establishment will react to it. If we are not at the tipping point yet, it doesn't mean that change will not happen. The transformative forces introduced by the new technology are extremely powerful. Change will eventually happen, but when and how?

There is no doubt that the #occupy wave has left a permanent mark on the Multitude. I think we are more aware now of the power that the new technology conveys to us. #occupy is the first global movement coordinated almost in real time through the Internet.

Define #occupy? Are you serious?

How focused and defined should be the #occupy movement?

There are a lot of voices within the #occupy movement calling to define the movement, to come up with a clear list of claims, or with a clear action plan. I have also came across a lot of articles arguing that the #occupy movement doesn’t need more structure. In this post I am going to give my opinion in support of a broad and only loosely defined movement, relying on my own understanding, which was built over the last 6 months of active involvement with the movement.

A deal for the elite.

The Multitude movement has gone beyond the critical mass. We are building alternative ways of creating and exchanging value that escape the systems of control put in place to insure the stability of those in positions of power. The infrastructure of the new world is coming together. It acts as a new vessel that contains masses of disillusioned individuals quitting the actual system for various reasons, from economical to ethical. The metamorphosis process is already under way. It has gone beyond the point of irreversibility.

Moreover, the power of the well-informed and well-coordinated Multitude has already surpassed the ability of those in power to contain us. There are many ways we can destroy the establishment. I hope we'll not go down that path to create chaos, but the possibility is there. It is REAL! See for example:

• I don't pay! How corrupt governments commit suicide by cutting their own veins open.
• How fragile is the system?

I define the point of irreversibility of this massive socio-economic transformation as the point in time after which it becomes impossible for the global elites to oppose the change, to keep the status quo, without taking radical measures that can jeopardize their very existence.

I am now talking to YOU, man and woman who profit from the actual system taking advantage of the Multitude. YOU are now facing the dilemma of choosing between two futures that don’t belong to you. Taking radical measures is NOT the smartest way to go. Help us to develop this new world and you might have a place in it. Push us further back to the wall, keep us hungry and we’ll become radicalized. YOU are losing your ability to lead, save yourselves before your ship sinks.

How?
In case YOU don’t understand what we’re talking about, help transfer resources from the present-old system to the new. Found projects that are going in the right direction. Help those involved in them by providing access to various other resources, adopt our new institutions…

By AllOfUs