User talk:Friedrich.hust

1) What was the initial starting point for the project / company?

Who was the initiator?

Who are the main founder of the project?

Marcin Jakubowski:

Open Source Ecology (OSE) was started to contribute to a global commons of open source information — with a particular focus on the tools of production.
I started OSE in my last year of my PhD program, as a response informed by what I perceived to be a general societal lack of true collaboration and openness, which I saw even in academia.
I noticed that even academia was turning into branches of proprietary corporate research and development, as opposed to the original mission of culturing open knowledge toward the benefit of everybody.

2) When was it started?

Where is it mainly located?

In the Kansas City area, Missouri – where the experiment began in 2006.

GPS: 39.863124,-94.376017

3) What is the objective of the project?

What are the realised results in autumn 2011?

Objective:

Our vision is a world where every community has access to an open source Fab Lab which can produce all the things that one currently finds at a Walmart cost-effectively, quickly, on-demand from local resources.
We envision these Labs being self-replicating and multiplying like rabbits. This would be a giant leap for distributive economics – where resource constraints no longer apply.
People would then have a chance to shift a significant portion of their energy to interests beyond mere survival.
The end state is super-skilled workers, free of control from remote power centers, as people in communities regain their power to thrive without strings attached to their happiness.
The scope of production should include everything from food to fuels and energy to semiconductors and metals.

4) What is the nature of the project (non-profit / for-profit)?

How is the project funded at this moment?

Funding:

• True fans (crowd funding)

5) What is the main difference between your project and others?

What makes your project special more successful than other projects?

6) How are you going to distribute your concept?

• Word of mouth
• Internet
• ...

7) Why are you not counting on an internal engineering force, but rather on a community?

8) Do you take statistics of your contributors?

How many people contribute to the project?

Where are the contributors from?

What are their level of education?

Contributor:

Hundreds worldwide, 2 on-site (14.April 2011) \cite{website:OSEFINANCIAL}

Currently 420 True fans

Coreteam: 7

9) What is the benefit to the community and the single contributor?

10) What does the community contribute? (design / prototyping / ... )

11) Of what kind are the innovative contributions (product- / process- / business model-innovations)?

12)How are contributions evaluated?

How do you decide which technology / development should become part of the project?

How are innovative contributions favored in the evaluation process?

Is your community a source of innovative concepts?

13) How do you decide on which components to make or buy?

Up to which granularity / complexity are you going to produce parts by yourself?

Where do you find possible suppliers for the realization of your project?

14) Is the community engaged in prototyping ( virtual / real world)?

The community is engaged in virtual (CAD) and real world prototyping. There are already completly functional prototypes, like lifetrac, power cube, CEB Press, etc.

15) Does a dedicated online platform exist?

What are the most important features?

What are the challenges of creating such a platform?

• MediaWiki
• ...

16)What information are common to the community?

Do you use open software / open file formats?

Information broadcasted through various channels, vlog, blog, mediawiki and twitter. Software:

• Linux
• Dia
• ...

some people even think about creating their own OSE Linux build. Containing all the necessary tools and libraries. \cite{website:OSEGLINUX}

17) How are the tasks broadcasted to the community?

• blog
• vlog

18) How is the granularity for the tasks defined?

19) What are the managerial challenges now and in the future?

20)Which license is used?

What are the basic license principles? From FAQ:

A comprehensive licensing strategy is currently being developed. Check back later. 

Also from FAQ:

Our technologies are open source in the traditional sense of open access to published blueprints (“source code”) for the technologies.
The OSE definition also includes an open business model – namely, that we share the business model openly by documenting fabrication economics and ergonomics, sourcing information, economic analysis, and other details which help others to replicate a profitable enterprise. \cite{website:OSEFAQ11}