Is there a sharing culture beyond economy, namely the »shareconomy«? Yes, there is. Watch this inspiring video of the Twin Oaks Community. They have »radical sharing« inside, but selling their commodities to the markets outside. It is one option in a capitalist environment.
https://vimeo.com/transitionbus/twin-oaks-egalitarian-community
Have a look at this really cool project in Oakland (USA): the Omni Commons. Join the virtual tour:
Watch this really cool film on FabLabs all over the world meeting in Barcelona.
http://vimeo.com/108275403
The Book of Peer Production has been released as a special edition of Journal of Peer Production. It consists of papers written by presenters at the Peer Production-track at the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS) in Göteborg 2014. It is cool, that all content in the book is in the public domain.
Johan Söderberg and Mathieu O’Neil explain: „In fact, the commons and peer production are two names for describing the same thing: a particular kind of labour relation. This labour relation is predicated on voluntary participation and the self-selection of tasks.“ — This is exactly what I mean by the commons as being a new elementary form (as used by Marx) of social production opposed to the commodity form.
These are the articles of the book: (mehr …)
This is an incomplete collection of commons-related events at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig, which will start on September 2. There will be an enormous number of parallel events, sessions and workshops during the 3 main conference days. So, if you want to find commons-related events, the following might be useful for you. We gathered information in English and German for panels and workshops prepared by commoners or where commoners participate. Moreover, You are also invited to one (or two?) network meetings of commoners.
We are thrilled that the Degrowth Conference goes beyond the degrowth movement and opens a space to discuss commonalities and differences with other movements. So,let’s make the commons visible at the conference and use this awesome opportunity to plan for our next steps. Maybe in a not so far future, the Commons Movement will organize a movement congress as well. Leipzig might be an example.
Sadly, my own event collides with a scheduled networking meeting among commoners and also several other commons-related events. There is just too much going on in parallel 🙁
The P2P Value Project collects data on Commons Based Peer Production and provides the data for research. The following video explains how the project works.
Designed by the Flowers Lab at Inria Bordeaux and Ensta ParisTech (France) Poppy is an affordable and hackable humanoid robot for science, education, art and geeks. Both software and hardware are available under an open source licence.
Michel Bauwens answered to the critique of Stefan Meretz on Peer Production License. Jakob Rigi from Hungary enters the debate commenting on both positions. They are documented in the following. My answer on both, Michel and Jakob, is using italics.
Stefan Meretz produced a critique of the Peer Production License, or more generically, Commons-Based Reciprocity Licenses, in the Keimform blog, to which I promised to respond.
There is a huge need for research on the causes of bee deaths. Open Source Beehives is a project to monitor and track the health and behavior of bee colonies. Watch the really cool video and the further video below.
From the project description: (mehr …)
Rosa Roig interviews Michel Bauwens, research director for FLOKSociety.org. FLOKSociety is a research project for the government of Ecuador that aims to create a policy and legal framework for the transition towards a social knowledge economy or a „open commons-based knowledge society“. The FLOKSociety.org project is a cooperation between the Coordinating Ministry of Human Talent and Knowledge, SENESCYT and the IAEN postgraduate institute for public servants, where the project team is located. See also the Open Letter to Commoners (EN|DE).