Value networks for software

Interesting questions:

Does this really mean all dependencies, or would it only include those who commit to reciprocal relationships?

Perhaps neither. If we started with just making some contributions to whichever software we depended on and felt was really useful/was in need, then that would get things going. This isn't ideal. Projects that have more brand awareness than utility might get more than they 'deserve', but it sidesteps having to wait for a system that is theoretically fairer, and we could learn faster.

By delegating these questions to the teams making the contributions we also allow them include contextual information that would be difficult to include in a network-wide approach - i.e. "we depend on this FLO software, its useful but its made by Google, who have stacks of money, so we don't need to give them more :)"

PS. Enspiral Craftworks will soon have an announcement regarding this sort of thing ;).

@simontegg - Yes, better to get things going and learn faster. I have been doing a bit of that, despite our project having no income, but have not done it with any announcements of why, or what I was trying to get going. Need to take that to another level...

P.S. yeah, I only contributed money to projects I thought needed the money, not the most popular bigname projects.

I support the idea, but I think basically this is more like a "consortium". I'm hesitant about strict network rules. At a basic level, I strongly support the essential "from each according to ability, to each according to need" and that doesn't sound like the rule that's proposed here (on brief skim).

At Snowdrift.coop, our plan has been to offer the option for projects to join together into consortia as desired and then have whatever internal decision-making process they like for how to best distribute their resources. Beyond that, we are asking projects to list their upstream dependencies and to contribute to those as appropriate (given that patrons at Snowdrift.coop will mostly focus on downstream projects). Our inclination is definitely to ask for transparency but otherwise give deference to projects about how they use their funds and how much they contribute upstream…

@wolftune My goal is “from each according to ability, to each according to need”. But societally, we are not there yet: we are in a transitional economic phase, where people and projects unfortunately need money to live. So we are all trying to figure out ways to make that happen fairly and maintain our values and help speed the transition.

But yes, in general, you are skimming too fast.

Here's part of where I am coming from. And this is not a proposal either, it is just a crazy thought experiment for discussion. Will have holes big enuf to drive a whale through.

I think that among the potential participants in the Open Apps Ecosystem, we will have a software suite that will be valuable to people who can make money off it.

For example: Grunt Funds, mentioned by @simontegg in an email conversation. These are sweat-equity-based informally-organized startups. In other words, small value networks. The author has already been talking to Sensorica, although I think the NRP software is overkill for what he has in mind, at least at first.

Steve Bosserman is working on what he calls Regional Business Ecosystems, which will consist of a variety of business types, and which are often funded initially by grants. There is no software for them. He's trying out our stuff in Tanzania.

So we know of two actual markets that people who know how to do that kind of thing could pursue. (That's not me, by the way.) But they could be using software produced in an ecosystem like Open Apps. Our software is too monolithic. Open Apps will be better.

But that kind of thing will require a lot of knowledge on many levels, and some level of collaboration between the people working on the apps and the people working on the ecosystem and the people pursuing the money.

It will certainly be possible to rip-and-run, but it will self-defeating in even the medium term not to play by the rules. There's always a danger because the people pursuing the money have a foot in both worlds and are susceptible to enticement.

And somebody will do that (make money off this stuff), or is doing something that already, because the business economy is fracturing and people are scrambling to figure out what is the next way to do business.

I think such an ecosystem does need some rules of engagement. It's not the same as patronage, it's semi-standard business relationships. But I could be convinced otherwise.

And I do agree with Simon and everybody else who thinks the more immediate need is to get the thing up and running. But I also know people who are watching and waiting.

@wolftune - I like every bit of this:
"At Snowdrift.coop, our plan has been to offer the option for projects to join together into consortia as desired and then have whatever internal decision-making process they like for how to best distribute their resources. Beyond that, we are asking projects to list their upstream dependencies and to contribute to those as appropriate (given that patrons at Snowdrift.coop will mostly focus on downstream projects). Our inclination is definitely to ask for transparency but otherwise give deference to projects about how they use their funds and how much they contribute upstream…"

And yes, I am talking about something less formal than a consortium but moving in that direction.

Looking forward to our next hangout. Eric (programmer) will join us and will use the opportunity to share what's going on with CM. @bobhaugen and @simontegg comments prompted me to mention this. CM is focused on bringing in sponsored $ from major institutions that will help fund global discussions as well as pay for whatever infrastructure we collaboratively decide is needed / makes sense.. in the development of a people centered economy.
Cobudget got me to thinking on these lines so far as we want to make it so that anyone can pitch a 'build' proposal, then 'members' can vote on who gets the funds. cc @joshuavial

@jonrichter - over here, you said you were " trying to understand OVNs". How can we help? What has made the most sense to you so far?

P.S. a conversation about how to evolve TransforMap into the direction of value networks might be useful. It's going in that direction anyway, with fulfills_needs now, and Offers, Requests. and Processes on the roadmap.

@bobhaugen Thank you for bringing this up. I just realized that @paul-mackay asked a very similiar question in our Discourse. To conclude from there:

I will prepare a dossier regarding possible relations of OVNs and NRP to TransforMap and then get into conversation-mode again.

@carolinesmalley - been thinking about your comments on the subject of CM, sponsorships, etc. and think they would be more coherent if you started a separate discussion for them, so they were all in one place. If I click on your name in a Loomio comment, for example, I see all of groups you engage with, but not all of the comments on this topic. If I search Loomio for carolinesmalley, I don't get much. If I search for Caroline Smalley, I get nothing. This is possibly a Loomio issue, but a new discussion would still be nice.