Transparent/Open/Free Entrepreneurialism

Is it possible to set up an economic endeaver that fairly rewards a community for collective stewardship of the commons and creation of further value that is then also placed in the commons?

Goal: Compensation for altruistic developers, entrepreneurs, investors, and associated communities/societies.

Is it possible to set up an economic endeaver that fairly rewards a community for collective stewardship of the commons and creation of further value that is then also placed in the commons?

I think it is. Others do too. There are some links to others assessment below. I think someone should prototype it and publish procedures and how to(s) to the public domain.

I started to outline a business plan for how such a community might be setup and operate initially. Sufficiently well defined such that it would be obvious to the casual reader the power and majesty of human potential interconnected via some tools, paradigms, and other assorted stuff being utilized or prototyped around the planet today.

FUD Effect - Resist its nefarious influence. Advised by TQM and Open Source advocates at large.

Then fear set in, what if my ideas are ridiculed? What if my apprenticeship status is revoked? I floated some balloons at usenet sci.space.policy (search for Michael R. Irwin, if you must .... Fair Warning: I was not always in best form and some of the writings and incoherent ranting may be disturbing. Cognitive dissonance and engagement was the goal, not sweet talking the mob.) about applying the collaborative open paradigm to engineering some space technologies that would lower the barriers to entry to entrepreneurs developing space related businesses. I intentionally did not moderate or polish the ideas because I was looking for real feedback in what would work and what would not, not buyin from bozos hoping to allow me to work myself to death while they sat back and shared in the benefits.

A good idea from a nut is still a good idea. The universe does not play favorates. Physics works the same for everybody who has the knowledge and talent to apply it sufficiently to at least learn from non fatal mistakes. Evolution happens.

It turned out that it was the wrong forum. Most there want billions from somewhere. Take your pick: government, Ayn Rand superheroes, Arabian Oil Shieks, etc. With these addtional billions in hand they will then proceed to produce TRILLIONS and keep it all for themselves and their investors. Mine! Mine! ... sorry .... Ours! Ours!

A few who frequent that forum are attempting to work within the existing U.S. economic framework to develop better methods. Success has been extremely limited so far. U.S.G. money is directed via corrupt political processes. Behomeths are going out of business left and right (in Aerospace sector) and have no money for little idea testing with the little guys (Less than a billion in capitalization, rocketry is currently very expensive.) anymore. Little companies go out of business and the intellectual effort in finding betters ways (much of it redundant with many other companies) is lost forever somewhere in the U.S. Patent Office, never to be used again for fear someone with a patent claim might show up. Worse, professional webs of trust, prestige, competency, excellence are shredded and cast to the winds. Some fragments retain links to other fragments. New teams must be built from scratch.

Even worse from my viewpoint: While the skills and talents necessary to do meaningful open engineering and the entrepreneurial skills to make money off of the same are present there (sci.space.policy & sci.space.*), they typically have insufficient web and computer science skills to support the necessary distributed infrastructure to make such a venture viable in the short term. Short term non-viability is the same as non viable in a standard business model, positive cash flows are quickly required to pay expenses. Probably similar constraints are true of communities, even distributed online communities. If some value is not returned immediately to the individual community users then the community begins evaporating.

Some key factors regarding my proposal or concept if it is viable (I think. These by no means provably complete, correct, sufficient, desirable or necessary by some standards. ) are as follows:

1.) There are other forms of capital than U.S. cash dollars.

2.) Solid communities can invest partime effort in mutually satisfactory goals or promising endeavers.

3.) Web traffic can be used to generate revenue in a myriad of ways.

4.) A true community of people with diverse talents and satisfactory community standards that allow free and safe (relative to the wilds or non community .... the dreaded, and rightfully so, strangers) interaction and cooperation can accomplish anything within the reach of mankind. Proof: Self evident. See history.

5.) The technologies exist or are being prototyped today that will allow the formation of incredibly effective virtual communities that are physically distributed in meatspace but almost instantaneously connected via the Internet.

6.) A decent legal team can help us design an approach that will comply with SEC requirements while meeting the needs of the community as we define it without handing control to Armani suits for their customary cut and assistance in defrauding unwary investors.

Successful methods have been demonstrated that create valuable intellectual property of some kinds. Primarily software tools. Scientific knowledge is an earlier example with hit and miss application. Older versions of U.S. patent and copyright were at least in intent intended to further develop the commons. This has obviously been subverted to at least some extent recently.

Methods of delivering some value back more directly to the developers are being explored haphazardly. Mixed results so far.

I propose that those of us who are interested form a online community for the express purpose of protyping and perfecting an entrepreneurial startup company model which gets started by using the assets already available in the public domain or software commons to create and return additional value to the commons while providing fair compensation to the company staff and community participants. The long term goal would be delivery of proven tested methods related to transparent entrepreneurialism (or other phrase of community preference) back to the larger communities from which we spring. We shall do this by showing them the profits and methods. The freedom and joy of fair (by the community standards) creation and distribution of wealth sufficient for ourselves and our associated communities.

What would we need to this?

Getting Started

Opinions will vary. Who knows? Perhaps a draft consensus sufficient to get started will emerge stone soup fashion somewhere soon. Here is my current shortlist to getting a specific prototype community (much is already present here at advogato and elsewhere around the web) started:

1.) An operational web site focused on this challenging proposal. Start with vanilla mod_virgule and develop better tools as we go.

2.) CVS server (or other functional equivalent) for developers to submit authorized or volunteered code

3.) A community process to apply community approved changes to a test development site.

4.) A community process to update the operational site to new stable versions with minimal disruption and loss of active data.

5.) A webfront to begin deriving income from the community expertise as it develops. This to be incorporated as soon as the organizational details can be worked out to the satisfaction of the community.

6.) A committment to success and growing the community at the expense of no one. I.E. We take care of each other individually and as a community in constructive ways and try to avoid any individual overworking themselves in pursuit of this tenuous goal. It may be a long haul to financial success and day jobs with partime contributions will be necessary until some revenue streams are developed and stable. Further to continue growing the community we must have mechanisms for effective participation at the periphery even after the core long established and effective members of the community have gone professional or moved on.

7.) A leap of faith. Rather than asking for ours up front (via large IPOs, high salaries, etc.) in exchange for this valuable contribution. We just do it and deliver it back to the commons.

8.) Some software engineers Top Down Design

9.) Some hackers (beginners accepted, more the merrier but too many will impede short term progress while assuring long term success via the scientific method and mutual training frenzies/flame wars) Bottom up optimization. Evolution. Intuitive genius or inspiration. Whatever.

10.) Other participation required: Legal, Marketing, Documentation, Training, Shipping, users, customers. Candidate target: Engineering Desktops and/or high performance computing resources.

11.) Other participation useful: Rest of the planet.

Some Background via Previous Advogato Data

Some interesting thoughts from miscellaneous Advogato masters are available here at these links or articles:

http://www.advogato.com/article/18.html Some thoughts on revenue mechnasm and sources of free/open code. http://www.advogato.com/person/raph/diary.html?start=81 Musing on the Tragedy of the Commons. http://www.advogato.com/article/93.html This article thread summarizes several business models.

Probably elsewhere locally as well. I am only so far along in data mining and detailed conceptualization and I am feeling itchy. There is a lot of economic injustice in the world that I think a successful prototype as described above could correct. Why? Because alternatives encourage fair play. With alternatives and freedom to choose according to personal interests, evolution happens and things get better, or at least move in the direction selected. The spiral is up. See history.

If you are interested in further rantings and/or background I spent a lot of time at sci.space.policy last year. Not all of it looks or is phrased rationally so try to think it through for yourself, to your own satisfaction. My diary here is rather incoherent to date so it will not be of much assistance. It does make clear why some method of augmenting the trust metric (journaling tool, project notebook, etc.) with public/private or some personal categorization such as notes/rant/political/engineering/project/team/buddies/lovers etc. might be useful.

Credibility Check ..... This is supposd to be upfront before you tune out.

I have worked in government and as a private consultant. I could apple polish this submittal; using techniques learned in college communications and professional proposal writing. My skills in the past have been worth millions to employers and customers in the proper place at the proper time. What would be the point? Ultimately for an economic community/organization such as is hypothesied as feasbile and proposed herein to form successfully; a few or many of you must become clear in your own minds that it is feasible and useful to yourself. That you get enough back by your own criteria to make it worth choosing to make the initial risk venture capital investment of your time and other invested resources, if any.

Behold the power of the Internet

I will leave you with a bit of paraphrased mentoring that the mentor of a master or journeyer shared with him and which he has now shared with me; recently, without his knowledge via his local diary entry or an article. I would give a link and/or his persona but I have no easy way to recover it at the moment, it was in an article thread somewhere in the advogato archives.

He wrote something like this:

When I was but an apprentice I pointed out to my mentor that a certain software developer was not so good. There was a trivial bug in his software that was causing me much grief and I had repeatedly asked him to fix it. He would not get around to it! This made me angry, it would be so easy to fix and yet it was still continually causing me problems!

"Why then have you not fixed it grasshopper?" replied his mentor.

Oh. A clue that even I can fathom.

Resources for the commons, fair compensation for developers, and space settlement in my time. What to do?

Once again, phrased a little differently.

I propose a prototype of a better business organization that is incorruptible without first destroying the community it serves.

If a cult develops we, the people, click away and try again. If the compensation is unfair or not useful we clickaway and try again. If the community gets too big to be effective and develops too many interests, we split up to try various approaches in diverse environment and propragate results back to the commons. A successful protype of this type of company will spread quickly and not go unnoticed in the world. So I assume. I guess I should look around a bit more. It seems a bit obvious and similar in many ways to current small business practice in the U.S.

It will work well because knowledge is an interesting form of potential wealth. You can keep it and you can give it away. You can give it away and still make money helping people understand it and apply it effectively. The more you giveaway the more that filters back. Some talent and organization is required to realize the potential and keep some of the material wealth resulting from its sweet fruition.

Nondisclosure Issues

This business plan (if successful) placed in the public domain, cannot be stolen, only suppressed. I can go implement it anywhere, anytime I have free (uncensored, not low cost) internet access to the mob. It can be implemented by any community or individual who can help create a community anywhere, anytime. It might even work in a physical community if a tight focus and dense resources can be located. Silicon Valley?

Capitalism

Reward for sharing the fruit of your collective invested intellectual labor or efforts with any or all others freely is not "communism".

It is capitalism.

People work hard on intellectual assets and the capital invested is not trivial by any measure of opportunity cost known to economists despite prattling about supply and demand curves after self serving destruction of supply or demand. It deserves a fair return to the laborer as well as Armani suits and absentee stockholders. If the return is self satisfaction, so be it. If it is cash delivered by an organized community in recognition of past performance or your day job, so be it. Wall Street does fairly well at regulating away competition. I believe there is still sufficient freedom to out manuever them legally in the U.S.

If laborers can organize in communities for the not sole profit of themselves and others, via the Internet, then I believe that this can be defended effectively, legally, and truthfully in court, public, in the media, via free presses, on the housetops and in the malls.

Christianity Pitch

Paraphrased loosely and concisely, when asked by city elders for the secret of the universe Christ replied with a simple set of rules that I believe have emergent characteristics:

1. Love God (creator, creation, universe, life, positive force, the source - slice it for yourself or find the original context, new testament.)

2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

I have never been much of a "Christian" as it is popularly defined in the U.S. Organized churches here look (to me) corrupt and self serving with little application of anything very useful to anyone other than themselves and their own interests. Any serious study quickly runs into severe accuracy problems, conflicting sources, quotations misused out of context, and constant pressure to take someone's word for all kinds of inane blather.

Perhaps I am now guilty of the same behaviour. I hope not. I think a community/company/organization built around the principle of sharing created value with all others freely; simultaneously earning sufficient revenue to be self supporting while creating further freely shared value; would better implement the above rule set than hiding knowledge and restricting supplies for personal benefit while others suffer.

While I do not currently classify myself as a Christian, I perceive Christ as at least a compassionate full grown human being with a lot of native genius and talent. I bet he and his would have been decent hackers and maybe even elite if the giants that went before them had already created computers and the Internet ....

Sometimes I wonder if the universe and/or the creator, or maybe just some other kiddies, is/are waiting for us to get our act together and come out to play.

Final pitch

Your feedback and/or participation would highly appreciated. I would really like to see this problem addressed, solutions prototyped and the full growth potential of human economies powered by Internetworks realized. I think it would assist several personal goals and benefit me personally. I also think it would help a lot of people out worldwide.

My newfound mentor, once removed, did not say I had to fix the bug by myself. Nor are you under any obligation to help. There are (last I heard) approximately 100 million people who regularly use the Internet, 50% in the U.S.A. There are also approximately 6 Billion other people on the planet who can potentially help me with this little problem.

It might be fun! Certainly educational. You might meet interesting people. It will be designed for rapid propagation and desirable emergent behavior. If the prototype works even marginally better than linux IPOs, then in the long term it could be lucrative. If a prototype is proven effective then great things become possible. I have some ideas and so do many others. See the game of "Civilization". I understand there are many freeciv clients and implementations. Pick your wonder and contribute effectively at an eventual personal profit. Diversify your portfolio carefully so you do not have to wait too long for some fruit to consume or share.

I look forward to your response here in public or in your public diary here at advogato. We can move the discussion as soon as someone with the resources and a willingness to tie them until they choose otherwise commits them and lets us know. Thanks for your time, interest, and comments regarding this matter.