Open Source Ecology

"Open Source Ecology is a nonprofit research and training center for ethical entrepreneurs."

URL = http://www.sourceopen.org/wiki/?pagename=OpenSourceEcology.About

It is also a method for developing neo-subsistence based communities, see OpenSourceEcology

Description

What it really takes to accomplish our Mission Statement is the creation of a parallel infrastructure for meeting human needs in a sustainable and regenerative way. To this end, the present system may be utilized as a working infrastructure onto which social enterprise can be superimposed as a critical component of meeting human needs in a sustainable economy. We believe that the route to such infrastructure includes: (1) open access to practical knowledge, (2), the collaborative development of working economic models via the nonprofit sector, and (3) education, demonstration, and training aimed at integrated, ecological, regenerative social enterprise. The process by which we attain the above is called Open Source Development, a collaborative, open process which builds on past knowledge and leverages public collaboration to create an Open Society." (http://www.sourceopen.org/wiki/?pagename=OpenSourceEcology.About)

"We derive our name from an analogy between Ecology in nature and Open Source in society. Ecology in nature is the seamless workings and relationships between life forms and their environment. Open Source is analogous to Ecology in that the transparency and access inherent to Open Source thinking helps to promote a democratic society. Open source thinking tends to reduce competitive waste such as warfare over resources or deprivation from basic human needs. Open Source Ecology is the integration of the natural and societal ecologies that tends towards regenerative economics. We are convinced that a possibility of a quality life exists, where human needs are guaranteed to the world's entire population- as long as we ask ourselves basic questions on what societal structures and productive activities are truly appropriate to meeting human needs for all. The goal is to liberate our time to engage in exactly that which each of us wants to be doing- instead of what we need to do to survive. All people have the potential to thrive while regenerating their natural environments."

What is Open Source Economics?

"Our mission is to extend the Open Source model to the provision any goods and services- Open Source Economics. This means opening access to the information and technology which enables a different economic system to be realized, one based on the integration of natural ecology, social ecology, and industrial ecology. This economic system is based on open access- based on widely accessible information and associated access to productive capital- distributed into the hands of an increased number of people. We believe that a highly distributed, increasingly participatory model of production is the core of a democratic society, where stability is established naturally by the balance of human activity with sustainable extraction of natural resources. This is the opposite of the current mainstream of centralized economies, which have a structurally built-in tendency towards of overproduction."

More Information

Essay by at http://www.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/Jakubowski.html