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Article Title: FAQ/hr

Wanted: Čitav stranicu treba smanjiti, učiniti jasnijom i manje dosadnom

FAQ - česta pitanja

Open Source Ecology (OSE)

Kako biste opisali rad OSE-a u jednoj rečenici?

OSE radi na Global Village Construction Set-u (GVCS), naprednom, industrijskom paketu gospodarstva koje se može replicirati jeftino bilo gdje u svijetu.

Kako biste opisali praktičnu motivaciju svog rada u jednoj rečenici?

Cilj nam je dokinuti materijalnu nestašicu kao pokretačku snagu ljudske civilizacije.

Kako biste opisali rad OSE-a u jednom ulomku

Za više informacija, vidi OSE specifikacije. .

Naša vizija je ambiciozna - mi hackiramo društvo. Gradimo skup strojeva za stvaranje samo-dovoljnog modernog života od nekvalitetanih rasprostranjenih lokalnih resursa. Dijelimo informacije potrebne za redizajn, popravak i ponovno osmišljanje ovog skupa, razvoj mreža za razmjenu znanja i sirovina, i pomažemo jedni drugima savršene vizije samodostatnog življenja. Nadamo se da će osiguranje potreba za opstanak neovisno o trenutnom uređenju dati ljudima slobodu da postane dublji, više promišljeni i više kreativnih. Omogućavajući ljudima da žive suvremeni život koji je usko povezan s zemljom i biosferom, nadamo se da ćemo im pomoći da postanu oprezni upravitelji zemlje. Takav način života može promijeniti uvjete ljudskog opstanka na planetu.

Zašto toliko naglašavate važnost materijalne oskudice za modernu civilizaciju?

Prema knjizi The Green History of the World ljudska povijesi, a posebno ekološka povijest - obilježena je ljudskim susretanjem bujnih šuma i ostavljanjem pustinja za sobom. Stvar je u tome da bi ljudi brzo spalili svoju bazu prirodnih resursa, brzo se množili, a zatim napadali svoje susjede kada im je ponestalo vlastitih sredstava. Ova priča još traje. Današnja carstva nastavljaju osvajačko ponašanje - i ostavljaju za sebom masovno uništenje. Zamislite sada da možemo ovo prevazići - i koristeći suvremene tehnologije pretvoriti sunčevo svjetlo u održivu energiju (sunce, vjetar, biomasa, voda, i ostalo) za obradu izobilja "prljavštine i lišća" pod našim nogama u sadržaj moderne civilizacije. To bi eliminiralo potrebu za sukobima oko resursa. Ključ ove transformacije je otvoren pristup znanju i vještinama koje to omogućavaju - koji guraju granice ljudskog tehnološkog kapaciteta u praktičnoj upotrebi nekvalitetnih a obilnih lokalnih resursa - stvarajući kao rezultat harmoniju između čovjeka i prirode.

Što je najvažnija značajka rada OSE-a?

Najvažnija značajka OSE-a je Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), integrirani skup alata koji se sklapaju kao Lego set ili puzzle u izgradnji materijalne infrastrukture zajednice. Dijelovi GVCS mogu se nadograđivati jedni na druge, kad imate jedan alat, onda možete prijeći na sljedeći. Na primjer, nakon što možete proizvoditi struju, možete pokrenuti indukcijsku peć, što zauzvrat može proizvesti metal koji može biti obrađen CNC-om za izradu dodatnih uređaja koji proizvode električnu energiju.

Opseg proizvoda nije samo tehnologija, već i permakultura i agroekologija - integrirani i regenerativni, prirodni ekosustavi koji pružaju široku lepezu proizvoda i sirovina. Naš je cilj gurnuti granice transformacije materijala stvaranjem industrijskog okruženja u kojem su svi elementi rade zajedno, pa se čak i napredni materijali taljeni iz ruda ili beskonačno recikliraju ili vraćaju zemlji. Mi počinjemo pokazivati da to može biti učinjeno ekonomično u malom, nikad izvedenom, mjerilu.

Da li predlažete da ljudi ograniče svoje aktivnosti, uspore, i mnogo laganije koračaju po zemlji?

Naš cilj je podići standard življenja bez kompromisa, čineći više s manje, pomoću mudrosti i tehnologije. Nema potrebe za žrtvovanjem, ako se resursi koriste mudro ili ciklički može se lako podržati sve na ovoj planeti bez ugrožavanja drugih i prirode.

Ako podupirete visoku tehnologiju, zar li to ne podrazumijeva određene otrovne ili štetne industrijske prakse?

Svaki industrijski proces može se nadomjestiti ekološki bezazlenom, open source alternativom. To je srž našeg rada. Mi težimo potpunom zatvaranje eko-industrijskih ciklusa, proizvodnji bez otpada kao u prirodi. Stjecanjem potpune majstorstvo nad transformacije materijala putem otvorenog koda znanja i eko-industrijske prakse moguće je proizvesti sve iste usluge u modernim gospodarstvima, ali bez negativnih posljedica. Mi se ne poziva na ograničavanje aktivnosti ljudi - ali mi traže zamjenu štetne prakse sa skladnim one.

Nadate li se da će te nadmašiti moderni industrijski sustav?

Dokazi ukazuju da možemo mnogo bolje od razornog status quo-a. Pitanje društvenog blagostanja nije stvar proizvodnje, već raspodjele. Kad distributivna ekonomija postane raširena, proizvodnja robe će se poboljšati na mnogo različitih načina i njena raspodjela će doći do više ljudi.

Zašto ste tako sigurni da će open source ekonomija i proizvodi nadmašiti izvedbu postojeće mainstream proizvodnje?

Linux je već pokazao da ako jedan open source projekt okuplja dovoljno developera i simpatizera kvaliteta tog proizvoda nadilazi komercijalnu konkurenciju. To je razlog zašto su open source software rješenja preuzela većinski udio na tržištu. Projekti open source hardvera počinju dokazivati isto u materijalnoj proizvodnji. Dakle, samo je pitanje vremena kada će otvoreni hardver postati norma. To je neizbježno zbog pojave interneta. Ljudi sada mogu surađivati preko interneta - ne samo u fazi projektiranja, već i izrade prototipa.

Što je vašem krajnje stanje ili vizija?

Naša vizija je svijet u kojem svaka zajednica ima pristup open source Fab Lab-u koji može proizvesti sve što ima na policama Walmarta, ali ekonomičnije, brže, i po potrebi, koristeći samo lokalne resurse. Mi vidimo ove samokopirajuće Lab-ove da se množe poput zečeva. To će biti veliki pomak za distributivnu ekonomiju - gdje ograničenja resursa više ne vrijede. Ljudi će tada imati priliku za znatan dio svoje energije iskoriste mimo pukog preživljavanja. Krajnje stanje su super-sposobni radnici, bez kontrole iz udaljenih centara moći, članovi zajednica koje su povratile moć uspješnog razvoja, bez dugova za sreću. Opseg proizvodnje treba uključivati sve, od hrane, goriva i energije, do poluvodiča i metala.

Koja je minimalna veličina zajednice koja može postići apsolutno blagostanje i autonomiju?

Naša analiza pokazuje da će oko 200 ljudi biti dovoljno za proizvodnju svih stavki suvremene civilizacije, uključujući i izradu poluvodiča i mikroelektronike na razini tehnologije iz 1990-ih . Analiza uključuje procjenu opsega različitih materijala i proizvoda potrebanih civilizaciji, uz rad/strojeve/vještina potrebne za svaki proizvod.

OSE govori o ekološkom integritetu i prosperitetu, ali zašto onda toliko čujemo o neizbježnom uništavanju okoliša i odumiranju?

Bez sumnje, ljudi su prouzrokovali mnogo razaranja, planetu i jedni drugima. Međutim, ne vjerujemo da je ovaj javni diskurs rješenje. Ako je, onda su problemi utvrđeni odavno.

Umjesto toga, pozivamo ljude da preuzmu osobnu kontrolu nad industrijom u kojoj sudjeluju. Osnaženjem osobne kontrole nad sredstvima za proizvodnju, inspiriranim podizanjem svijesti i odgovornosti o globalnom 'footprint'-u, možemo izaći iz ovog ciklusa.

Ne volimo koristiti taktiku zastrašivanja. Ako će ljudi nestati sa lica zemlje, priroda će progutati i prerasti ljudske tragove u nekoliko godina i stvari će biti sasvim u redu. Ili, ako ljudi malo opamete sve će, opet, biti u redu. Naša poruka je da svi preuzmu odgovornost za svijet oko sebe. Energija ima u izobilju. Tehnologija se stvora lako. Nismo ni blizu iskorištavanju mogućnostiplaneta. Stoga, pozivamo vas da preuzmete osobnu odgovornost za prijelaz na razuman život u kojem se ne djeluje destruktivno, niti omgućujete i financirate druge za destruktivno djelujovanje.

Mi jednostavno promoviramo open source ekologiju. Pozivamo vas da preuzmete punu odgovornost za svoje globalni 'footprint', da u potpunosti iskoristite otvoreno znanje i distributivnu ekonomiju i da se naučite razvijati u modernom stilu života utemeljenom na obilnim, lokalnim resursima.

Kako se možemo nadati napretku ako smo usred energetske krize?

Energetska kriza može se najbolje opisati kao nedostatk svijesti ili predanosti. Da li znate da bi korištenjem komercijalno dokazanih solarnih tehnika generiranja električne energije pomoću kolektora sa ogledalima trebali samo 0,3% kopnene površine u SAD-u za zadovoljenje svih potreba SAD-a? Svatko tehnološki pismen i s malom količinom poslovnog razuma će primijetiti da ova činjenica čini pojam energetske nestašice bezpredmetnim.

Tvrtke kao što su Ausra mogu ekonomično instalirati solarne sustave u mjerilu elektrane. Otvoreni izvorima tehnologije obično mogu smanjiti troškove 5 do 10 puta. Ako smanjenjimo troškove tehnologije solarnih kolektora samo za duplo, većina Sjeverne Amerike (koja nije osobito sunčana) mogla bi generirati energiju jeftinije od bilo koje postojeće tehnologije. Nadalje, open source solarni kolektori su mogući ne samo za elektrane, nego i za mnogo manju, decentraliziranu proizvodnju. To je jedan od ciljeva OSE-a.

Da li sugerirate drastično smanjenje troškova kao rezultat otvorenog izvora hardverskih tehnologija?

Drastično smanjenje troškova je poznat učinak open source proizvoda, gdje zajednički razvoj eliminira razne neefikasnosti za dobrobit korisnika i proizvođaća. Demonstrirali smo otprilike 5-truko smanjenje troškova s Liberatorom, našom CEB prešom, i prodajnom cijenom od 8000$ nasuprot 45000$ kod konkurencije.

RepRap, projekt open source printera, je pokazao najmanje 10-truko smanjenje troškova. Prije RepRapa za 3D printer je trebalo izdvojiti oko 10000$.

Slični trendovi su primječeni i u odnosu open-source i 'zaštićenih' varijanti mnogih drugih tehnologija.

Da li su vaše tehnologije open source, i što to znači prema OSE standardima?

Naše tehnologije su open source u tradicionalnom smislu otvorenog pristupa objavljenim nacrtima ("izvorni kod") za tehnologije. OSE definicija također uključuje otvoreni poslovni model - naime, dijelimo poslovni model otvoreno dokumentirajući stvaranje ekonomije i ergonomija, izvor informacija, ekonomske analize i ostale detalje koji pomažu drugima ponoviti profitabilno poduzeće.

Zar se ne bojite krađe svojih ideje i poslovnih modela?

Vjerujemo da će svijet biti bolji što više ljudi koristiti i proizvodi robe prema OSE specifikacijama, i mi im želimo pomoći da uspiju. Što više ljudi gradi i testira alate, to će žilaviji projekt biti. Čak je i rad onih koji steknu patenate nadograđujući se na naš rad općenito pozitivan doprinos, budući da patenti istječu nakon nekog vremena.

Što se tiče patenata, mi otvoreno publiciramo, tako da nije moguće da nas netko spriječi u korištenju vlastitih dizajna. Patenti zahtijevaju originalnost i ako su naši dizajni javno objavljeni, nitko drugi ih ne može patentirati.

If you publish your business models openly and give your information away freely, how do you still maintain competitive advantage?

We maintain collaborative advantage by our ethics, integrity, primacy and zero-waste policy. We use the tools to provide for our own needs, which cuts operating costs. We prefer DIY solutions to hiring others, which cuts costs further. And community-based, voluntary labour ensures near-zero labour costs and constantly improving products.

We believe simply that the energy that our commercial competitors spend on protectionism, and therefore their limited ability to collaborate openly, is a huge waste and liability. We, on the other hand, are free to contribute all of our energy to creative development. For this reason, we are not overly concerned about license violations against us or about policing – because we'd rather spend our time creating. Protectionism, policing, excessive structuring, and bureaucracy are forms of waste that we tend to avoid – based on our zero-waste policy of promoting post-scarcity economics.

What are the basic productivity specifications for your tools?

The open source tools must be competitive in productivity with their commercial counterparts. We aim to provide the same service as existing machines, with a high productivity-to-labor ratio. To give some round numbers, a one or two person operation producing lumber, fuel, metal, foodstuffs, or any other product should produce a minimum of $1k worth of product per day.

If you are to compete with mainstream industry, wouldn't you have to make millions of dollars per day from a given operation?

Large corporations have to make millions each day because their costs are also millions of dollars per day. Their net gain is much smaller. We do not have the same constraint if we build everything ourselves - from dirt to product.

Our capital costs are replaced by the cost of labor used to produce goods from free natural resources. With negligible material costs, the value that our labours produce is all profit. Thus, earnings of $1k from a micro-production enterprise translate to $50-100 per hour per person – which is a healthy wage for a skilled worker.

Rather than use expensive, specialized materials, we use labour to turn free resources into the materials we need. Of course, this requires the technical capacity to convert raw feedstocks like wood and dirt to the high-value products – which is one of the basic goals of our experiment. We are in the initial stages of testing this hypothesis.

Unlike commercial competitors, we have no sales and marketing overheads.

You must be kidding. If you make all of your feedstocks from scratch, you will never be profitable, because that takes too much time and complexity, no?

We calculate that if we produce our own materials it will cost us about 30% less compared to buying those materials off-the-shelf. We've done this for the case of an induction furnace producing our own virgin steel from scrap rather than buying steel from a vendor. See Technological Recursion. This is a good start, but we hope to go one level deeper and extract metals from minerals. This should lead to further cost reduction over off-the-shelf purchasing. The economics are even more favorable when we use our own products in production.

Are you suggesting that it is more efficient for communities to produce their own goods than to work for someone else in order to be able to purchase the same goods from outside sources?

Yes. Initial evidence suggests that it is more efficient by a factor of 5-10. The implications of this for liberation are profound.

Are you suggesting that every person in the community must do a wide array of tasks in order to provide such an economy?

While the individuals in the community will not be specialists, they will be general specialists who participate in division of labor. If a community has a minimum of 200 people, there are many hands to divide the necessary tasks for thriving.

What are the labor requirements for handling all the productivity of the initial GVCS 50 technology set?

Wanted: Update this to reflect the current, 50-tool, GVCS. It's about an old version

Assume a 20 person prototype community, prior to the creation of a 200 member one. One custom fabricator can produce for the community and still have ample time for market production of all the mechanical tools (that is 18 of the 50, including cars and bulldozers). Assume each machine takes about 40 man-hours of labour to build. Thus, one person could make all heavy equipment for agriculture and construction and utility tools from open source plans. The total number of items may have to be 22 – say 5 cars, or one car per 4 people. One builder/architect would cover construction needs. One engineer could run the solar turbine, steam engine, heat exchanger, gasifier, and pellet production with the pelletizer. This would require only about a month of labour per year. That accounts for 23 of the tools. One farmer can run an orchard, garden, nursery, field crop, dairy, chicken, and a bakery. That accounts for 27 technologies, with 20 people each working 50% of the time.

The next person is the digital craftsman – running the CNC torch table, lathe, mill, drill, ironworker, oxy-hydrogen cutter, 3D printer, and welder. (Up to 35 technologies now.) This person could make, from raw metal, hydraulic motors (36 tools now) and steam engines, and replicate the tools. This would require working about 1/6th of the time, or two months a year. The last person is the digital metalsmith – with the capacity to run an induction furnace, hot rolling of steel, moldless robotic arm casting, wire extrusion – the last of the set for a total of 40 tools – that enable production of virgin metal from scrap.

Here we have covered:

Custom fabrication of industrial machines
Agriculture – providing a varied, complete, diet all year round
Fuel and energy – biomass pellets, evolving to solar turbine over 2 years
Construction – this requires a few months the first year to establish the community and only occasional expansion after that
Metal production – to provide the raw materials for digital fabrication
Digital fabrication – precision engineered tools

It is surprising to say it, but just six people working on a cushy schedule can provide food, energy, housing, fuel, and technology for a community. We could still handle 14 more people in other trades, as all needs are already covered.

This entire package may be assessed in more detail by breaking it down into phases: the startup phase requires the most work, the above covers an intermediate running phase where the community is beginning to stabilize. At the final stage, where the community is fully established, more labour-saving should be possible with more skills and more automation.

The limiting factor in using tools is not human labour, but engine horsepower. This is determined by the amount of land available. An acre yields pelletized biomass equivalent to about 500 gallon of diesel and a gallon of diesel yields about 20hp hours, so every acre brings in about 10,000 hp hours. This is like getting 100,000 slaves for one hour, or about 100 slaves for 125 work days. The point is that one acre growing biomass provides substantial energy.

Is OSE interested in generating economic surplus by centralized production?

We are interested in economic surplus not via centralization, but via decentralized production that uses digital fabrication to produce a wide variety of tools for the local community, whatever size that community may be. Centralization has to date been accompanied by poor distribution of wealth, and our work aims to address this point.

What is the scale of the production operations that you are proposing?

E.F. Schumacher has explained clearly in his seminal book Small Is Beautiful that human enterprises beyond a certain size simply break down and economies become dysfunctional. We see many examples of this today: instabilities in megacorporations, burgeoning governments and inflated financial institutions.

We know that two workable solutions are reducing the scale or getting better at management. OSE is focusing on designing and building functional communities beginning at the smallest scale of feasibility – as the simplest, practical experiment for proving our hypothesis. We believe that a modern, resilient community may be built with as few as 200 well-rounded, general specialists. Our prototype community experiment aims to demonstrate this point, and other implementations at other scales are encouraged in parallel.

How far along are you in your work?

We are mere babies, given that only one of the 50 technologies of the GVCS - The Liberator - has so far reached Full Product Release status, while 5 others have been prototyped: the LifeTrac tractor, Power Cube I & II, Soil Pulverizer I & II, MicroTrac I, a heavy duty drill press I, a 150-ton hole puncher I, RepTab I, the CNC torch table and Hexahatch I & II, the open source chicken incubator. The steam engine, heat exchanger, and burner prototypes I are forthcoming by January, 2011. We have already demonstrated that machines such as tractors can be built cost-effectively by a small facility with basic tools. Digital fabrication is the next step; this will reduce costs further. Examples include using the CNC torch table to cut tractor parts or a CNC mill for making hydraulic motors. In a later phase, we hope to produce electronics, design a desktop semiconductor foundry, and build a 2000 sq foot silicate foundry to produce metal.

Is the GVCS the final product of OSE work?

There are 3 levels of the GVCS, each with progressively more complex technologies and more independence.

The first level is building the 50 tools above. These are essentially complete products, produced from off-the-shelf components bought from elsewhere.

GVCS II focuses on producing components.

GVCS III focuses on producing raw materials to produce the components.

Each level does more of the production with local materials until ultimately we end up being able to make metals and semiconductors - the basic ingredients of a high-tech civilization - from local minerals.

Do you believe there is a technological fix for everything?

We like to see ourselves more as humanitarians who have recognized simply that material well-being is the foundation of any civilization, including that of a spiritually-advanced civilization. Our work aims to eliminate material scarcity as the dominant driving force of civilization dynamics. With full bellies and warm bodies, people will be free to pursue their passions. Technology is merely a tool to help accomplish these goals.

What do you foresee as the deeper political effects of your work?

Governments as we know them become obsolete with the advent of open source ecology, as do all structures for collecting and redistributing resources with significant collateral damage.

Distributive, collaborative production with universal access to advanced, appropriate tools will be so productive it will outcompete existing businesses. We foresee an equal playing field of competent, well-organized, small-scale, decentralized republics after the borders of empires dissolve through a natural progress of evolution. This is true whether one lives in the first, second, third, or fourth worlds; these distinctions likewise dissolve with open source ecology.

What is your greatest challenge in completing the GVCS?

We're basing our entire design on economically-proven technologies, so the challenge is not the technology itself. The challenge is the lack of awareness of the bright futures that are possible. This limits the amount of support for our work. Most people are overspecialized and generally technologically-illiterate. The era of the integrated human and generalist has not yet arrived, but this is likely to change due to increasing access to rapid, integrated learning opportunities.

Does open source ecology provide any solutions to the various conflict hot-spots scattered throughout the globe?

While armed conflicts are complex in their origin, they typically have at least some origin in the material security of the parties in question. On many occasions, population issues exacerbate such struggles.

Our solution is to build solid means of production in afflicted areas, accessible to all. The wealth and abundance these create will chase out the material scarcity that feeds conflict.

When communities rely on local resources for their survival, regenerative use of resources keeps populations in balance with the capacity of the environment. When supply and demand are balance, no one feels the sting of scarcity.

Thus, we believe that open source ecology can start to chip away at war – and at best, can put a stop to it altogether.

What do you suggest as a progressive legal structure for OSE communities?

We propose registering OSE communities as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), specifically as private-contract, full-liability enterprise communities.

We suggest that land holdings be organized as permanently evolving preservation sites of human heritage.

The purpose of these communities should be to serve as 1000 points of light across the globe that show a positive example of sound and fulfilling living.

As such, we propose that these communities function as development facilities for helping their surrounding economies to transition to resilience. We further propose that as NGOs, OSE communities should act with full responsibility for their actions and should not seek limited liability or other means of outsourcing accountability to third parties.

What is Open Source Ecology?

OSE is a movement for healthy interaction of human and natural ecosystems, based on land stewardship, regenerative use of resources, open access to information, and distributive economics. These guarantee well-being to all the planet's denizens. “Open source” comes from the open source software and hardware movements, and ecology refers to the harmonious interaction of natural and human elements to the benefit of all.

Where are you based?

We have a physical facility – Factor e Farm – a dedicated 30 acre research lab for testing all the concepts, in the Kansas City area, Missouri – where the experiment began in 2006.

Isn't this just revisiting the back to the land movement of the 1970s?

It's more than that. How farms operate has changed dramatically since the 1970s. On most commercial farms, mechanization has increased steadily, while new seed, fertilizer, and irrigation technologies have increased production dramatically. There has also been significant research and development in both biointensive agricultural techniques and permaculture. These techniques helped make intensive food production that improves soils and requires little to no ongoing input of resources possible for many small farms and communities. Some mechanization and technology is synergistic with these techniques in ways that maintain their ethos of ecological responsibility. Given this, there are many new possibilities for what a self-sufficient community can be.

The internet has also changed what a self-sufficient community can be. The internet makes it easy to share knowledge and collaborate on problems with people who are far away. This makes bazaar-style open-source software development possible, and it’s starting to have the same effect on hardware. Automated fabrication — computer numerical control — could make it possible to do a lot of machinery design and construction with less labor and less capital investment than was needed back in the 1970s.

Biointensive agriculture and permaculture are powered by design. It is now possible to share design development and improvement of agricultural systems in ways not possible before interconnectivity through the internet. We can develop a truly open source permaculture. OSE is also working to create RepLab, a digital fabrication workshop. A functioning workshop could allow people to instantly share plans across the internet and produce machines and machine parts on a small scale in a short time frame.

Response adapted from a comment by Kragen Javier Sitaker on | hackaday.com

Why use machines? Aren't traditional farming methods less wasteful and toxic?

Why use machines? Time. Subsistence farming is exceptionally labor intensive. Modern tools bring the power to lessen labor burdens and increase quality of life substantially.

An integral part of our work is creating industrial processes that are fully in harmony with ecologically responsible living. We are pursuing completely closed ecological industrial cycles, with which there is no waste. Right now we are building tools and machines to get us to this point. Developing the prototypes and first builds of the #Global Village Construction Set does require some industrial inputs from outside, along with their negative impacts. This a preliminary step needed to take us deeper into the process of creating a truly ecological approach to technologically modern self-sufficient living.

Isn't mass production and specialization more efficient/better?

Mass production can be far more efficient, and much of this efficiency is gained through the externalization of costs. There are a number of negative externalities usually produced by business-as-usual production that are not factored into market cost:

Transportation: Taxpayers paying for roads are subsidizing distribution costs.
Pollution: Water, soil, air, and noise pollution cost everyone, most intensely the economically disadvantaged. It is often the case that when industrial pollution is tolerated, products cost less. It can be more efficient to avoid environmental remediation.
Worker alienation: Treating workers as valued contributors often runs counter to goals of efficiency.
Aggregation of wealth: Centralized production is especially conducive to centralization of wealth.

Certainly, some industries gain more efficiency through externalization of costs than others. It may be that mass production of some things will continue to be preferable, but what those things are remains to be seen. Open Source Ecology seeks to create technologies that do not rely on these negative externalities for efficiency. When these externalities are factored into efficiency calculations, one finds in many cases that it is more efficient for communities to produce their own goods, by a factor of 5-10. The implications for liberation are profound.

Further, greater efficiency can be undesirable. Increasingly efficient systems can become very reliant on a certain set of external conditions to allow them to function. In the rare event that a major shift were to occur, much of business-as-usual production could suddenly lose its ability to operate and would have to transform rapidly at great cost or perish. OSE is working to allow people to build resilient communities that are tied only to the land, allowing them to weather a wide variety of external changes.

Doesn't this ignore the global trend of urbanization?

In theory, this approach is modular and scalable to larger communities and greater population densities. The limit to population density arises from finite sunlight energy and limited resources. Sunlight energy is currently intensely underutilized, while using technological resources in a closed eco-technological cycle reduces resource inputs as it reduces waste. Food production at high population densities might not look much like traditional farming, but it does at least theoretically jive with what OSE is creating. Other implications of large-scale settlements need to be explored.

Our analysis indicates that about 200 people is the minimum needed to produce all the items present in modern civilization, including semiconductor and microelectronics fabrication up to the level of 1990s technology. The analysis involves assessing the range of the various material and product needs of civilization, along with the labor/machine/skill requirements for each product. Whether larger communities are desirable has yet to be seen.

Global Village Construction Set

We are building new machines by recombining existing technologies. The Global Village Construction Set is designed to become a fully integrated set of machines for creating a self-sufficient modern life from the resources of a small amount of land.

The plan for the GVCS has 3 levels, each taking the project a step farther away from reliance on outside inputs:

Level 1: Building a set of machines as complete products using off-the-shelf components.
Level 2: Building tools to build components for the machines of level 1.
Level 3: Building machines and processes to introduce raw materials into an ecological industrial cycle to serve as materials for the components of level 2.

See a summary of our current progress.

What are these 50 technologies in particular?

See Global Village Construction Set for a list

Why not buy these tools and machines at my local store?

Farm and construction implements bought in the current market are limited because their designs are the intellectual property of the companies that produce them. This results in low accountability. While higher quality, cheaper machines would fare better in a pure market system, the market system we're working our way out of is far from pure. This results in higher prices. Drastic cost reduction is a well-known feature of open source products. See a graph of estimated price comparisons.

Reasons proprietary technologies are more costly:
1. Planned obsolescence: Companies routinely sell products with a limited useful life in order to maximize profits. When products wear out quickly, sales go up. The overall cost is much higher than the cost of buying one quality product.
2. Competition through advertising: Rather than competing by reducing prices or increasing product quality, entire industries may set uniformly high prices while companies in that industry compete with each other through advertising only. The consumer loses.
3. Regulated repair: Proprietary technologies require keeping users in the dark about machines' design and inner workings. Warranties discourage tinkering by requiring repair by licensed repair technicians. This repair can be very costly, and add greatly to the overall cost of the machine.
Advantages of OSE technologies:
1. Lifetime design: The technologies of the GVCS are designed to be easily taken apart and fixed. These simpler machines are built to last a lifetime.
2. Collaborative development: We are also documenting our plans with open source licenses so that anyone may replicate our designs. Open source development can reduce design inefficiencies. More minds and hands devoted to a problem can lead to solutions for building at a lower cost, in less time, and with fewer resources.
3. Design as a set: The GVCS is being developed with a modular design that greatly reduces waste. For example, one power source can be switched from machine to machine, saving the resources one would need to have a separate power source for each.
4. Modification: Because the plans are open, the tools and machines can be remixed, tweaked, and built upon. They can be disassembled and combined into new creations, modified to function better in specific environments and for particular purposes, or added to for additional utility.
5. Self-replication: The GVCS, once fully developed, is designed to be self-replicating. Buying into the development of this set could mean never having to buy a new implement again.

Why did you select 50 particular technologies, and is this list fixed?

Fifty tools are enough to build a civilization, yet a small enough number for us to achieve. With fifty well-chosen tools, we can meet people's needs of food, energy, housing, and technology. The tools are all proven technologies; no new inventions are required. This set is the simplest possible way of that building resilient communities with abundant resources.

We have selected these tools according to OSE Specifications.

The list is not fixed. As we experiment with the tools in-field and learn from these experiments, we may change the list. The services provided by the tools are relatively fixed, while the implementation may vary, if we find that a different tool matches the OSE Specifications more closely.

Why didn't you choose (a different technology) for the GVCS?

The Global Village Construction Set is designed to be sufficient to provide the food, energy, housing, and technology needs of advanced civilization. We are choosing elements for the set that are:

Proven technologies, requiring no new inventions
The simplest possible that serve our goals
In line with the OSE Specifications

Our choices are not set in stone. Along with developing and testing these tools and machines, we are beginning to use them to support ourselves. This is a tough test of their true effectiveness. If it becomes clear that a different technology would be better for achieving our goals, it will be included.

All the important parts are made in China. How is this building self sufficiency?

Open Source Ecology is working on building the machines of Global Village Construction Set in parallel with the tools needed to fabricate them. This project is in its early stages. The complete GVCS is designed with the capacity to fabricate all of the parts needed to make a copy of the whole set from raw materials. Going deeper, some technologies for extracting/refining raw materials for the set from abundant, low grade natural resources are in their planning stages. When the first set is complete, inputs of commercially manufactured components will no longer be required. Given, it will take a lot of work to get there. See the levels of the GVCS.

Early stages of the GVCS do require parts from China. Later stages will not, as the ability to build open source versions of those parts comes online. The project is using some of the products of global society to create the tools to subvert it, taking the harvest for the seed.

Where can I find plans?

Plans are currently spread out over multiple pages for each technology. We are in the process of formatting the documentation in an easier-to-follow way, beginning with the CEB Press. Check the GVCS page and explore the pages on each of the tools listed there to find the schematics, drawings, and plans. As we become more organized, and the project becomes more developed, there will be more to access and it will be easier to access.

What kind of license are you using?

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

Do these machines have any relevance in the third world? Aren't they too costly?

The construction of the first GVCS, while cheaper than its commercial counterparts, is taking a significant amount of outside investment and resources. However, the set is designed to be self-replicable. This means that the cost of building subsequent sets will be much lower, a feature that may make the GVCS a feasible option for those living in poverty. A bigger hurdle is cultivating the skill sets needed to construct and maintain the GVCS. Innovative solutions are needed to facilitate a widespread adoption of the GVCS.

Could I build a business around this?

Yes. We encourage the use of an open source business model. When people say Open Business Model, typically, people mean that the subject matter of a business model is open source. OSE goes a step further. We hope to foster the sharing not just of how to build a product, but how to market and sell it, how to organize effectively, and other important practices and processes. The business model itself is open source.

This means giving up advantages gained through proprietary information. A prospective business owner would have to accept total free enterprise, as open source plans eliminate barriers to entry for other players. In exchange, the prospective owner would gain the advantages of having a team of volunteer developers. We believe a proprietary effort can never be as effective as an open source effort because once a certain number of open source contributors are found, product quality begins to surpass anything possible with limited proprietary funding.

Open source businesses generally create revenue by offering services related to an open source project. For example, you might create a revenue stream through offering supplementary services around the GVCS, such as building the machines for others or using the machines to offer services to others. Open source business models for software can be seen in action, but these models have not been well explored in the realm of hardware development. The viability of such a project has yet to be proven.

You say it's free yet you ask for money. How come?

In English, but not in other languages, "free" can mean both "freedom" and "zero money", and you need to look at the context to decide which meaning is being used in a given circumstance. The GVCS will be free in the sense of "freedom": anyone will be able to download our documentation and make copies of it. Anyone will be able to build machines without paying (us or anyone) for that right. If information is distributed in a DVD, a price may be charged for the medium and the work of making a copy, but the information is still free in terms of your freedom to use it and distribute it.
Of course, we as developers need money to sustain our developement effort: if we work on a prototype for several weeks, we need to eat to stay alive, and we also need to buy parts, write documentation, and a variety of other tasks. That money comes from True Fans, from specific donations, and from our first sales.
Later, when the machines are documented, ourselves and other people will take on a different role, not as developers (which is a one-time activity) but as makers (which happens once for every machine that's built for somebody else). If someone makes a machine for you, they can of course charge for their work, for the price of the parts, and get some reasonable profit - just like in any other sale in the world.
A common phrase in the Open Source Movement compares Free Speech and Free Beer. Free speech means freedom. For beer, it does cost money to feed the inventor, and it does cost money to fill each glass. But you are free (as in freedom) to pass around the recipe.
In short, we need some money to create free(dom) recipes. Once done, the recipes will be available to everyone at no cost. You'll be free(dom) to make the machines, and also free(dom) to pay for others to make the machines for you.

How can I help the project?

We are looking for many kinds of help from people of all types, places, and skill sets. We're seeking donations of time, money, expertise and materials. We're also searching out contractors for some project development and grant writing tasks. Find out what you can do to get involved and keep this project moving forward.

@@ Line 86: / Line 86: @@
 Naše tehnologije su open source u tradicionalnom smislu otvorenog pristupa objavljenim nacrtima ("izvorni kod") za tehnologije. OSE definicija također uključuje otvoreni poslovni model - naime, dijelimo poslovni model otvoreno dokumentirajući stvaranje ekonomije i ergonomija, izvor informacija, ekonomske analize i ostale detalje koji pomažu drugima ponoviti profitabilno poduzeće.
-===Are you not afraid of others stealing your ideas and business models?===
+===Zar se ne bojite krađe svojih ideje i poslovnih modela?===
-We believe that the more people who use and produce goods according to OSE Specifications, the better the world will be, and we want to help them succeed. The more people building and testing the tools, the healthier the project will be. Even the work of those who acquire patents after building on our work are overall a positive contribution – since patents expire after some time.
+Vjerujemo da će svijet biti bolji što više ljudi koristiti i proizvodi robe prema OSE specifikacijama, i mi im želimo pomoći da uspiju. Što više ljudi gradi i testira alate, to će žilaviji projekt biti. Čak je i rad onih koji steknu patenate nadograđujući se na naš rad općenito pozitivan doprinos, budući da patenti istječu nakon nekog vremena.
-Regarding patents, we publish openly – so that it is not possible for someone else to prevent us from using our own designs. Patents require originality and once our designs are published openly, no one else can patent them.
+Što se tiče patenata, mi otvoreno publiciramo, tako da nije moguće da nas netko spriječi u korištenju vlastitih dizajna. Patenti zahtijevaju originalnost i ako su naši dizajni javno objavljeni, nitko drugi ih ne može patentirati.
 ===If you publish your business models openly and give your information away freely, how do you still maintain competitive advantage?===