OSE License

OSE License v0.1 6.12.10

The OSE License is a product license dedicated to the creation of post-scarcity economics.

Introduction, Philosophy, and OSE License

Completion of The Liberator Beta v2.0 marks the first, Full Product Release of Open Source Ecology (OSE). Herein we clarify our intentions and strategic issues behind this product, such that any user or beneficiary of OSE's work, as well as any third party intermediary, may understand our work and intent more completely.

OSE is a non-governmental organization formed for the purpose of active development of resilient communities and economies. We are best described as an open source product development entity, or an open source economic development entity, working for the interest of all of humanity. Our particular approach is addressing the issue of effective production, as a foundation for creating post-scarcity economies. This implies thorough evolution of macro-social psychology towards the acceptance of a post-scarcity mindset - namely, that we can all get along, and that 'there's enough for everybody'. To date, civilization has failed in addressing these fundamental points. While addressing these points requires the maturing or evolution of people on psychological and spiritual fields, we believe that addressing the physical needs of humans effectively can be a direct route to promoting such evolution. This belief constitutes a motivation for our approach of developing effective tools of production. We believe further that if material constraints or physical needs were removed as the fundamental struggle of humans, then humanity would begin to have a chance to evolve - to freedom.

With the above philosophy in mind, OSE has set out to open-source key tools for producing the infrastructures for living and working. Our open source work starts with open-sourcing designs for the tools of interest, and it continues to the open sourcing of the actual business model. Our aim is replication - that of productive enterprise being replicated by a diversity of producers. This is the essence of free enterprise, defined as non-monopolistic production by a large number of stakeholders. We aim to encourage open competition on a level playing field. Our aim is the distribution of economic power to many people, along the lines of Jeffersonian democracy. We believe that scarce resources are not necessary to fuel advanced civilization, as human needs and societal advancement can be fueled by widespread, local resources - under the assumption of wise technology use.

We set forth these principles as our underlying motivations, and we contribute all of our work into the public domain - for the unrestricted access to information. We can only encourage adopters of our work - and those who replicate open enterprise - to contribute their improvements, and especially their business models, back to the commons. We do not require it, however, as we do not believe in coercion - defined as acting against one's own will, even if it is done contractually. We have produced our designs by standing on the shoulders of giants before us, and we do not claim any of our work to be original. We also feel that to claim originality as such is arrogance of ego, and that those pursuing patents to protect 'their' inventions are lacking in human spirit.

We believe that 'sharing' is accomplished most directly by sharing not the 'fish', but by sharing the 'fishing pole.' In particular, that 'fishing pole' is the open product design - the tool that allows one to reproduce the item of interest. Even beyond the 'fishing pole' are 'instructions' on how to produce the 'fishing pole' for others not capable of producing the fishing pole by themselves. The analogue of these particular 'instructions,' in the economic sense, is the open source business model. If we  were to apply ancient wisdom of 'sharing' to the digital age - then we would share open source business models.

That sums up our beliefs on a tactical approach for bringing about post-scarcity economics. We are contributing 100% of the value generated from our work to bootstrap-fund further product developments. Our goal is to contribute a world-class effort to open source economic development. We are positioning our marketing strategy to underscore this point. If you support our work, you are contributing directly to the above stated goals. Our leadership prides itself in its integrity, honor, and commitment to effective development of post-scarcity economics by developing open source versions of key, economically-significant tools for the advancement of civilization without geopolitical compromise.

If you like our work, consider buying our products. If you are not interested in our products but want to see more open source product designs becoming available for addressing pressing world issues, then consider subscribing to the True Fans by going to Support OSE at http://openfarmtech.org. We also need help with documentation (CAD, fabrication drawings, technical writing), Product Release CDs, branding, marketing, publicity, and general resource development. If you have these skills, please contact us.

We also believe that achieving post-scarcity economics is not a far-fetched goal. The number of goods and services that humans need is well-bounded, and likewise, the Global Village Construction Set is well-bounded - with only 40 key technologies. Since these are generative in nature, we believe that open-sourcing them is sufficient to create advanced, post-scarcity civilization. It will take about US$2M total to develop all the tools within a 5 year period as of the present date. Once that is done, our work is done, and we can move on to more interesting pursuits as well, knowing that the world is in good hands on the material front.

We are interested in helping you directly with enterprise replication, under the condition that you also contribute to open source product development of enabling technologies for post-scarcity, resilient communities.

We believe that giving our business models away helps us, as opposed to hurting our efforts. On the practical side, we know that we can always produce and capture the high value of effective production - and we have competitive edge because of primacy on the topic. We do not intend to compete with remote efforts, simply because it is wasteful to transport things over long distance. We are not threatened by monopolies, first because we are not for sale, and second, for practical reasons of transportation costs, quality of service, ethics, and primacy.

We provide our products under the OSE Label. This is branding intended to verify the desirable features promoted by OSE, or OSE Specifications. The OSE Label provides transparent documentation and a score, provided on the label, with a respective logo for each product release. The qualities documented on the label include: localization of production; availability of documentation (plans, fabrication procedure, open business model, user manual, product release CD, etc); lifetime design (design for disassembly, modularity, interchangeability of parts); systems design; ecological soundness; etc.). We are open to others producing under this label as well, if the producer is able to meet OSE Specifications to a degree equivalent or greater than our own product. The OSE Label will be administered by OSE or a collaborating organization.

We also hereby declare that all hacker spaces are authorized resellers of our products.  This is a means for other allied efforts to earn from our efforts as well. The details will be negotiated on a case by case basis, so please contact us if you are interested in funding both your and our work.

We believe that 'saving the world' is a tangible concept which requires that we simply become responsible for production, to the point that we generate widespread access to post-scarcity means of production.  This is a heavy task for a world indoctrinated with dependence, illiteracy, alienation, and impotence - but we also believe that this can turn around completely within a generation. We believe that getting to the point of post-scarcity, resilient communities is a 5 year task requiring a budget under US$5M, and that new economies and means of exchange are around the corner for our taking if we choose to do so.

Summary of Operational Points as of 6.22.10

1. We are an NGO working for the benefit of all.

2. We have an ambitious program to develop a robust set of open source infrastructure technologies known as the Global Village Construction Set. We release our products under the OSE License, as above. The license explains our underlying motivation, to clarify the essence of our intent and actions. We have been in operation for 5 years, and only now did we release our first product. We expect product releases on a time scale of 6 months and under, from now onwards.

3. The most direct way that someone could support the development of the above infrastructure is by buying our products. At present, we have only one product. There is much work to be done in terms of development. Product sales can scale our productivity by a factor of four with the existing infrastructure.

4. All proceeds from the sale of products are put back into the development of the remaining products. We have not advertised yet, since we are scaling up our operations, and have sufficient work at present. We are dividing our time between production work and development work, so we have plenty to do, and we are looking for more people to join our development team.

5. True Fans have been a staple of our support since one year. We have 78 True Fans, plus we receive other donations.