Sarapis

URL = http://www.sarapisfoundation.org/

Sarapis uses the P2P Foundation wiki as it's home. To see all the pages in the Sarapis section of this wiki, go to Category:Sarapis.

Old Wiki Homepage

Welcome to the Sarapis Foundation wiki where we share unpolished information relevant to Free/Libre/Open source (FLO) projects. We love FLO because it provides us with access to our technologies source materials so we can participate in their development. Read more of our thoughts about FLO.

We've divided our work into three sections:

FLO Solutions are software, hardware, data and knowledge solutions that make their source materials accessible to anyone who wants to participate in their development.

• BEEx is FLO grassroots fundraising software solution that we've deployed at BEEx.org
• FLOing.org is a news aggregation and community website for people interested in participating in the free/libre/open evolution.
• OpenImperative helps nonprofit and community organizations understand the value of FLO solutions.

FLO Spaces are physical locations that encourage participatory production practices.

• OpenCoworking is a project to centralize and make accessible information about the world's coworking spaces. You can see some of our notes on the project at Open Coworking Library.
  • Starting a Coworking Space?
  • The OS Handbook is a living document that synthesizes coworking best practices from a variety of different sources including coworking owners, operators, users and community groups and includes original and curated business plans, financial models and investor presentations intended to help people understand, create and maintain FLO-friendly spaces.

FLO Participation are Sarapis team projects that integrate FLO solutions and FLO spaces together in ambitious ways.

• FLO Farm is a 200+ acre FLO Space in Eastern Pennsylvania where we farm, research, craft and live using FLO principles. Check out FLOfarm.org to see what's happening on the land.
• New Junction City is a movement to turn the Broadway Junction neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY into a hub of FLO activity.
• FLOAmerica is a set of recommendations designed for America's unique set of challenges and traditions.

Help organize materials in our drop box.

Pages

Productivity Software

Web Browser: Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Microsoft Office Replacement: Libre Office http://www.documentfoundation.org/

Email Management Thunderbird http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Photoshop Replacement: GIMP http://www.gimp.org/

Illustrator Replacement: Inkscape http://inkscape.org/

3D Graphics: Blender http://www.blender.org/

Web Applications

Wordpress is best for blogs http://wordpress.org/

Joomla is makes it easy to produce content sites and intranets. http://www.joomla.org/

Drupal requires more work but is more customizable. http://drupal.org/

CiviCRM is a powerful, slightly complicated constituent relationship management system: http://civicrm.org/

Software

Standard Bundle is a list of popular, useful open source tools.

OS Alternative shows you the open source alternatives to proprietary software products.

Open Source POS System

Hardware

RepRap 3d Printer and a store to buy what we need to make one.

SheevaPlug computing device

Food and Farm

Project FRESH is an educational program providing participants with coupons to purchase locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables at participating farmer’s markets.

FarmBridge wants to "provide free software that will help the local foods movement grow!"

"The National Young Farmers' Coalition is a new organization, created by and for young and beginning farmers in the United States." Their Farm Hack Project is "a resource for farmers who embrace the long-standing farm traditions of tinkering, inventing, fabricating, tweaking, and fixing things that they broke."

Wanna Farm is a blog from Blue Fox Farm in Southern Oregon. "One of the things that will help us maintain farmers is by being innovative and creative in creating our farming systems. Hope the info here can contribute to that. Email me at wannafarm [at] gmail [dawt] com"

The Greenhorns is a documentary/community about the emerging young farmer's movement. Here's their blog.

Philosophy

The Wealth of Networks Wiki is wiki "based on Yochai Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom."

Download and read Homesteading the Noosphere by Eric Steven Raymond - a great primer on open source and hacker culture.

"The Cleveland Model and Micromanufacturing: An Opportunity for Collaboration?" by P2P Foundation.

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism "To dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State. --Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution"

The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto is a free PDF on the ramifications of open hardware.

Quirky is an open(ish) approach to product R&D.

Open Source Alliance announces it's looking to get politics.

Development Firms

DataScribe builds nonprofit websites with open source tools.

Acquia provides support to the Drupal Community

Initiatives

100k Garages "is a community of workshops with digital fabrication tools for precisely cutting, machining, drilling, or sculpting the parts for your project or product, in all kinds of materials, in a shop or garage near you."

BestPractices.org Sharing Database in Improving the Living Environment in partnership with the UN-Habitat.

Open Innovation Projects is a list of open design projects.

LibrePlanet "is a global network of free software activists organized into teams working together to help further the ideals of software freedom by advocating and contributing to free software."

Open Solutions Alliance

AdBard is an adnetwork for the FLOSS community.

Community Groups

The Coworking Google Group is a community of space owners, operators, members and enthusiasts who discuss issues pertaining to the coworking movement

HackerSpaces.org is a one stop shop for a tremendous about of information about hackerspaces including a directory of spaces and information about best practices.

Coworking.de is the German coworking community portal.

News and Thought Leadership

Emergent Research has a 'coworking lab' that focuses on monitoring the growth of the movement.

DeskMag is "the magazine about the new places we work, how they look, how they function, how they could be improved and how we work in them. We especially focus on workspaces which are home to the new breed of independent workers, such as coworking spaces, private shared studios and executive offices."

Open Software and Data Projects

The Hub's open source software projects including space management software.

Coworking Registry is a database of coworking spaces that focuses on developing a powerful APi.

Open Space Handbooks and Manuals

The Center for Social Innovation of Toronto Canada has published three pdfs about their experiences creating a space, how to create your own space and how collaborative spaces are changing in the world.

The Hub Design+Make Handbook version 1.7 is "aimed at helping Hub Design and Make Teams develop and use principles, tools and systems to conceive and navigate the project of creating a physical Hub."

The Sarapis Foundation has published financial models for a coworking space in Brooklyn, New York. One model includes a cafe, the other is just coworking space and events.

Kaan Aksay also shared a great financial model on the coworking google group that is highly geared towards the process of starting a shared office space.

Exemplary Spaces

Bucketworks in Milwaukee

Indy Hall in Philadelphia

The Cube in London

Coco Vivo in Panama

Organizing

ANTI-MASS - Methods of organisation for collectives.

FLO America

Our society is transforming from corporate production paradigms designed made possible by industrial technologies to participatory production paradigm made possible by networked technologies. This transformation is being powered by a number of movements. These are the most significant.

• Open source software allows it's users to participate in it's continued development by making it's source code accessible and it's development transparent. This software can always be forked - or duplicated - so it's users can develop the copy however they want. This type of software is often produced for no financial compensation by people simply solving their own problems. Open source software is in almost everything, but there are thousands of products that are made entirely of open source code, such as
  • Apache, Linux, Ubuntu, Android
  • Wikipedia, Wordpres, Joomla, Drupal
  • CiviCRM, JomSocial, Redmine

• Open work spaces (coworking, new working, maker, etc) are physical locations where people can participate in the emerging post-industrial paradigm of participatory production.
  • OpenCoworking Wiki
  • Hackspaces Wiki
  • Ecovillages

• Open source hardware is still transitioning from a hobby-driven phenomenon into a more intentional foundation for product design. The impetus for it's development are coming from many sides: hobbyist projects, craft production, DIY agricultural/land management equipment and robotics, etc.
  • Make Magazine
  • 3rd Ward
  • Open Source Ecology
  • Willow Garage

• Local economics organizations are sprouting up everywhere around a variety of different practices including farmers markets, food coops, small business networks, local trading networks and intentional communities.
  • BALLE
  • Transition Towns
  • LETS
  • Berkshares
  • Park Slope Food COOP

• Open government initiatives are popping up at the city, state and federal levels, provide us with the information and human capital necessary for extensive analysis of a wide variety of government programs.
  • Sunlight Foundation
  • OpenCongress
  • LilSis
  • Gapminder

To Do

The Open Imperative asks you to commit to using free/libre/open source (FLO) solutions whenever possible and provides you with access to all the solutions you need to be a productive members of participatory communities.

• Sign the Open Imperative

Regular People

• Find a job.
• Create profiles about each congressmen and their relationships using congrelate, foreignlobby.org, and Transparency Data.
• Go party with the lobbyists and tell us about it.
• Create a Model Congress video game that uses real time congressional information.
• Forward people here who want to volunteer.
• Organize call clusters asking different federal agencies to improve their grades.
• Call the New York Times and ask them if they'd like to comment on this video.

Government Officials

• Endorse the 8 Principles of Open Government Data. and sign the Public=Online Petition.
• Advocate "bulk data access to legislative data and an open API for THOMAS." David Moore of the Participatory Politics Foundation
• Read an open government roadmap authored by the NY State Senate's CIO.
• Support the implementation of The Sunlight Foundation's House Rules Proposal and follow their 2010 Agenda.

Strategy

1. Be optimistic: Open source technology is accessible technology, so the more advanced open source technologies become, the more wealth each individual can create. It's that simple and that awesome. The vast majority of people don't know open source exists because the media hasn't told them about it. Participation in open (source) projects is a truly evolutionary economic activity that moves us beyond coercive post-industrial economic practices and into networked, voluntary ones.

2. Champion open government: Progressives and libertarians agree that all government activity (except classified military info) should be available to the public in the most accessible ways possible so open government should be viewed as the bridge between two former philosophical nemesis. As we open government up, we can see where inefficiencies are and address them with actions. Whether the actions are reorganization or elimination is a conversation that can only happen after we've achieved the first milestone of radically opening up the government.

3. Articulate a vision: There is an end goal - a meta objective - which is transitioning America from a post-industrial society with a monopolized currency that inefficiently monetizes value into a networked society with free currencies that efficiently allocates capital to participants. Localism, which is voluntary participation in local economic exchanges and is NOT coercive protectionosm, is an objective almost all America can agree on and work towards. Only open source technologies can be localized and decentralized. Closed/proprietary technologies can not be localized so we should always avoid using them when open alternaitves exist.

4. Attract volunteers: There are many things people can do right now to support the open government movement. The more liberty advocated we get into this movement, the more obvious it will become to everyone that liberty is a political persuasion that transcends the Republican/Democrat (Coke/Pepsi) debate and advocates effective, functional and fair governance.

Uorganized Resources: FLO America.

Needs Sorting

Mark Frazier of OpenWorld

Over the years, I've been impressed by the following spectrum of reform opportunities. All can help awaken land values in distressed areas.

As long as the gains from appreciated land values go in large part to social benefit (helping fund local good causes), there may be prospects for a left-right alignment in support of the following:

1) Free and open source eGovernment modules, aimed at improving business climates in distressed areas (by simplifying business licensing, zoning, and building code approval processes)

More: http://www.openworldinstitute.org

2) Land grants -- via transfers of idle municipally-owned properties -- to endow local microscholarship funds for peer learning, online skills acquisition, and certifications

More: http://www.entrepreneurialschools.com/land-grants & http://www.entrepreneurialschools.com/microscholarships

3) Lower insurance costs via group purchase of homeowners insurance policies, with additional discounts keyed to level of progress (digitally-recorded) by neighborhood cleanup/fixup and community crime prevention initiatives

More: Stimulating Community Enterprise - a 1984 report I did for the Joint Economic Committee of US Congress (contact me if you'd like a copy)

4) Formation of charter schools and virtual ventures that vest students as equity stakeholders, with rewards and prizes linked to peer group progress

More: http://j.mp/7Z8m6w

5) Student engagement with local enterprises via work-study projects on removing barriers to their growth (see @anametheus "University of Tomorrow" talk)

http://blog.changeyourreality.com/post/858769274/a-university-of-the-future

(especially from 17:25 onward)

6) Formation of coops to lower health insurance prices via group purchase, including discounts for documented changes in diet/lifestyle (e.g. the "Safeway Plan" rewarding those who bring body mass index levels below 30)

More: http://j.mp/4Ic3a1

7) Reduction of property tax burdens on neighborhoods in step with their assumption of infrastructure/service responsibilities

More: http://j.mp/dNriG2

8) Linking of public sector salaries/pensions to the growth rate of the local/regional economy, along the lines of Singapore's 'flexiwage' system.

More: http://j.mp/gxZ6XH

Projects

IT Dashboard: The IT Dashboard is a website enabling federal agencies, industry, the general public and other stakeholders to view details of federal information technology investments -

FedSpace: FedSpace is a secure intranet and collaboration workspace for Federal employees and contractors.

Digitalizer: Danish Approach to FedSpace.

OpenCongress: Track bills, votes, people in Congress.

LittleSis: Free database of who-knows-who at the heights of business and government.

POPvox "bridges the gap between the input the public wants to provide and the information Members of Congress want and need to receive."

MetaVid: "The Open Video archive of the US Congress"

MapLight "Connect the Dots between Money and Votes"

Follow the Money "The Nation's Most Complete Resource for Information on Money in State Politics"

Open Secrets "OpenSecrets.org is your nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy. Whether you’re a voter, journalist, activist, student or interested citizen, use our free site to shine light on your government."

GovTrack Tracking Congress

Public=Online "“Government transparency is critical to creating a better democracy, and of highest importance in how I cast my vote. I pledge, through my sustained engagement, to hold public officials accountable for being open and transparent.”

CivicCommons "Sharing technolog for the public good."

GovHub open source repository for government.

Public.Resource.org makes bulk information from the government available like codes and court decisions.

The Open State Project collects and makes available data about state legislative activities, including bill summaries, votes, sponsorships, legislators, and committees.

"A ChangeCamp is a creative face-to-face gathering that is citizen-led, non-partisan and social web enabled

The First Earth Battalion Field Manual articulates a way for the US military to open itself up.

MuckRock is a website that helps you file, track, appeal, and eventually publish FOIA'd documents, all through a single web interface.

Organizations

Sunlight Foundation has a tremendous amount of projects with which to collaboration.

ProPublica is honest news.

BALLE is a vehicle for connecting to local businesses.

City Year is an example of a 'capacity building organization.'

Office of DC CTO is a primary mover in the open city government movement.

Code for America "Connecting city governments and Web 2.0 talent."

OpenPlans is a New York based nonprofit that helped create Open311 and other technology intensive open government projects.

Knowledge as Power: "KAP allows you to track legislation, communicate with lawmakers, and impact the laws of your state – it's quick, easy, and timely."

Open Source for America is a technology industry open source advocacy coalition.

GovLoop is a social network geared towards government employees with over 35,000+ members.

Participatory Politics Foundation is a New York based nonprofit that built OpenCongress and is working on a similar application for open city and state governments.

Development Firms

Development Seed DC - Drupal, creators of Open Atrium, a Drupal based project management system being run on GaryJohnson2012.com.

Phase Two Technology: DC - Drupal, creators of OpenPublic, a Drupal CMS distribution for federal government projects.

Bridge City Studio Portland - Drupal has a nice resources page.

CivicActions Berkeley - Drupal, CiviCRM constituent relationship management system of Drupal and Joomla.

Brattcollective.com is "a worker-owned and operated technology collective, focused on workplace democracy and promoting a democratic society while supporting like-minded businesses and organizations by providing open-source website development and consulting." They work with Aspiration Tech.

Radical Designs "is a full service web development group focused exclusively on the needs of non-profit and grassroots social change organizations."

News and Commentary

GovFresh is a news organization that "inspires government-citizen collaboration and build a more engaged democracy."

OpenGovTV "provides Open Government and Gov 2.0 News, Information & Resources for businesses, government agencies, and constituents to more effectively participate in and benefit from the emerging technologies designed to restore this nation's economy and create jobs as a result of an Open Government."

All US Government IT Projects Under Review

Denmark urges government support for open source

Open Source for America The New Government Accountability

The Case for Government Promotion of Open Source Software

Digitalisér.dk Review

Joshua Tauberer's News Aggregator

States

CivicApps Portland App Contest

Open Missouri

New York State Executive Order

Opportunities

Central Contractor Registration (CCR) is the primary registrant database for the U.S. Federal Government. CCR collects, validates, stores and disseminates data in support of agency acquisition missions. Is this the primary channel of US government communication with the private sector? If so, we need to start working with them to make APIs...

The projects that receive email funding.

Open CRS simply asks congress to make all the tax-payer funded reports of the $100m/year Congressional Research Service open and available to the tax-paying public. What is this money was allocated via open competitions?

8 Principles of Open Data

Quotes

"More consumers create more problems. More participants create more solutions. It's that simple.

The Sarapis Foundation believes that access to technology is a human right and that the only way we can secure this right is by creating an entire ecosystem of FLO technologies people can use to create wealth and wellness for themselves and their communities.

Our reward for achieving this ambitious objective is nothing less than the abundance that becomes possible when everyone can participate in a networked society." (http://www.sarapisfoundation.org/)