FLOAmerica

= free, libre, open source America project

URL = http://www.floamerica.org

Devin Balkind:

"Devin <devinbalkind@gmail.com>:

"The fundamental principle of the type of open government we advocate is localism. We need to make it easy for people to deploy their own open source systems for common needs like schools and hospitals, and then make it easy for them to connect their system into a network that shares data and structures it for easy analysis. The technology platforms already exist in the form of open source CMS's, and most of the components exist too. They just haven't' been organized into complete systems that people can consume, they haven't been documented appropriately, and they haven't been connected together in a network. Most important of all, the story of how the system could work hasn't been successfully told, because it was, we'd be hearing politicians talking about open source as a solution to the budget crisis.

We're calling this project FLOAmerica (free, libre, open source America.)

More Information

More info at floamerica.org."

Wiki on Sarapis

Presentation FLOAmerica Part 1: The Concept

On P2P

Our society is transforming from corporate production paradigms made possible by proprietary industrial technologies to participatory production paradigms made possible by free/libre/open source networked technologies. This is great news because participatory production is more efficient, more equitable and more sustainable than corporate production, and also a lot more fun!

The amount of free/libre/open source (FLO) technologies accessible to the American people is increasing everyday, and as these technologies advance, so does the capacity of each American to create wealth for him or her self. By investing in the development and deployment of strategically significant FLO technologies, we can create the tools we need to drastically increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations in our communities, including schools, hospitals, local governments, police/fire departments, utilities, social service organizations, and businesses of all types.

Four Trends Transforming our Society

• Free/Libre/Open source software, hardware, data and knowledge allows its users [Fondue Forks to participate in its continued development by making its source materials accessible and its development process transparent. FLO projects are structured around the first rule of participation: you can always walk, and with FLO, you can take a copy of all the project's materials with you. This is called a fork, and it's what differentiates FLO projects from conventional ones.
  • Interesting Facts
    • FLO is often produced for no financial compensation by people simply solving their own problems.
    • Almost every piece of software has at least some open source code in it.
    • Thousands of widely used products that are made entirely of open source code: Apache, Linux, Ubuntu, Android, Wikipedia, Wordpres, Joomla, Drupal, CiviCRM, JomSocial, Redmine...
  • Wikipedia's list of free/libre/open source software
  • [OpenImperative] has a curated list of great FLO software products for individuals and organizations.
  • [FLO Solutions Resources] has links to lots of cool FLO projects.
  • Douglas Rushkoff's 2003 book Open Source Democracy

• [Open work spaces] (coworking, new working, maker, etc) are popping up all over the world, offering independent workers physical infrastructure and a community support network that helps it's members succeed. We view these spaces as the physical platform upon which people can participate in the emerging post-industrial paradigm of participatory production.

• [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.

• [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.

FLO Tools

http://groups.drupal.org/aegir-hosting-system

Incorporating FLO into Political Messaging

[CPAC Flier]

"Participation builds transparency to deliver efficiency." Noel Hidalgo, OpenNY Forum

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.

The History of Government-Financed FLO

The idea of government financing the development and deployments of FLO technology is at least as old as the 'agricultural societies' of colonial times and was the inspiration behind Ben Franklin's Almanac. The concept was codified into law by the Morrell Act of 1862, which created our nation's land grant university system to "to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life." The land grant system was quite successful at this task until World War One, when the system's focus shifted from empowering Americans with new technologies to increasing yields/acre by any means necessary, including the introduction of petrochemicals and genetically modified seeds

Fortunately, good ideas never disappear forever and FLO reemerged in the software industry as a way to create standards and allow online communities to use, modify, improve and share critically important technology solutions. What began as a way to develop back end server software has now become the most widely used method of software production in the world, responsible for some of the most successful products of all time: Apache, Linux, Firefox, Media Wiki, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, OpenOffice. The list goes on and on.

Thanks to projects like the Open Architecture Network, the Global Village Construction Set and Reprap, FLO designs for housing, agricultural machinery, personal fabrication devices and much, much more are appearing all over the internet, making it possible for us to collaboratively develop the tools we all need to create more sustainable, more resilient and more comfortable communities.

Land-Grant in United States Sources:

• "Treaty of Guadalpe Hidalgo: Findings and Possible Options Regarding Longstanding Community Land Grant Claims" by US Government Accountability Office

In Colonial America, starting in the 16th century, land grants were given for the purpose of establishing settlements, missions, and farms. Under colonial law and the doctrine of planting and seeding, a patentee had to cultivate 1-acre (4,000 m2) of land and build a small house on the property, otherwise the patent would revert to the government. In order to find some time for myself I decided to search for service that could supply me with the prime quality custom essays at prices that would be reasonable enough. The final choice was QualityEssay.Com as they did have an excellent reputation. Starting with the American Revolutionary War, United States veterans often received land grants in lieu of other remuneration. Between 1783 and 1821, Spain offered land grants to anyone who settled in their colony of Florida. When that colony was transferred to the United States, the resulting treaty agreed to honor all valid land grants.

Land-Grant Universities Sources:

• Title 7 of the US Code
• “The Land Grant Tradition” by Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
• History of Iowa State by Iowa State University

Land-grant universities (also called land-grant colleges or land grant institutions) are institutions of higher education in the United States designated by each state to receive Fondue Forks UK ] the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890.

The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to the states for the states to develop or sell to raise funds to establish and endow "land grant" colleges. The mission of these institutions as set forth in the 1862 Act is to focus on the teaching of agriculture, science and engineering as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class rather than higher education's historic core of classical studies.

History

The concept of publicly-funded agricultural and technical educational institutions first rose to national attention through the efforts of Jonathan Baldwin Turner in the late 1840s. The first land-grant bill was introduced in Congress by Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont in 1857. The bill passed in 1859, but was vetoed by President James Buchanan. Morrill resubmitted his bill in 1861, and it was ultimately enacted into law in 1862.

Prior to enactment of the Morrill Act in 1862, Michigan State University was chartered as a state land-grant institution on February 12, 1855, as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, receiving an appropriation of 14,000 acres (57 km2) of state-owned land. The Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, later to become Pennsylvania State University, followed as a state land-grant school on February 22 of that year.

Upon passage of the federal land grant law in 1862, Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) was the first existing school whose state legislature accepted the provisions of the Morrill Act, on September 11, 1862. The first land-grant institution newly created under the Act was Kansas State University, established on February 16, 1863. The oldest school to hold land-grant status presently is Rutgers University, founded in 1766 and designated the land-grant college of New Jersey in 1864.

West Virginia State University is the only current land-grant university to have surrendered its land-grant status, which happened in 1957, and to later regain this status, which happened in 2001; and is also the smallest land-grant university in the country.

Expansion

While today's land grant universities were initially known as land-grant colleges, only a small handful of the seventy-some institutions which evolved from the Morrill Acts still retain "College" in their official names.

The University of the District of Columbia received land-grant status and a $7.24 million endowment (USD), in lieu of a land grant, in 1967. In a 1972 Special Education Amendment, American Samoa, Guam, Micronesia, Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands each received $3 million.

In 1994, 29 Tribal colleges and universities became land grant institutions under the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act. In 2008, 32 tribal colleges and universities have land grant status. Most of these are two-year degree granting colleges. However, six are four-year institutions, and two offer a master's degree.

Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges, including the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Morrill Act of 1890.

For 25 years prior to the first introduction of the bill in 1857, there was a political movement calling for the creation of agriculture colleges. The movement was led by Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois College. On February 8, 1853, the Illinois Legislature adopted a resolution, drafted by Turner, calling for the Illinois congressional delegation to work to enact a land-grant bill to fund a system of industrial colleges, one in each state. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois believed it was advisable that the bill should be introduced by an eastern congressman, and two months later Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont introduced his bill.

Unlike the Turner Plan, which provided an equal grant to each state, the Morrill bill allocated land based on United States Video the number of senators and representatives each state had in Congress. This was more advantageous to the more populous eastern states.

The Morrill Act was first proposed in 1857, and was passed by Congress in 1859, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1861, Morrill resubmitted the act with the amendment that the proposed institutions would teach military tactics as well as engineering and agriculture. Aided by the secession of many states that did not support the plans, this reconfigured Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862.

Ways to Accelerate FLO Development

• Land grants for FLO development
• Require government agencies only purchase FLO licensed solutions
• Finance the development of FLO solutions for common challenges

Get Involved Now

Activists

• Sign the [OpenImperative]
• 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.

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.

Resources

Unorganized [Resources: FLO America].

[FLOAmerican.org Site Development]