Open Source Store

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Governance could be about assuring everyone has access to robust productive capacity. Distributed production is the single greatest guardian of liberty. Distributed production shifts the dialogue from allocation of scarce resources to the creation of abundant resources. While taking care of nature. Read How Economic Localization Can Be the Greatest Measure for Safeguarding the Environment.

The Open Source Store is the implementation of its research effort, the Open Source Everything Store.

Intro

One of the big outstanding questions of open source product development is how to insert financial feedback loops into the process, so that we can realize mass creation of right livelihood via open source enterprise.

It can be theorized that an open process has the highest potential for incentivizing contributors - because everybody gets to use the value created in the process. The limit here is consciousness: whether contributors are familiar with the construct of IP being a human fiction, not a law of nature - as Yochai Benkler talks about in The Wealth of Networks.

Scarcity thinking is the villain here - in that a person thinks that if they have something of value and anyone else can use it (for example - by sharing proven, open source enterprise designs) - that will decrease the value of the Open Source Store for everyone. That is true for Rival Goods, and the question here boils down to whether collaborative development of an Open Source Store produces a rival good.

The Open Source Store as an entity and its realization are not a rival good if the Open Source Store provides common-use, multi-billion dollar or trillion dollar market goods. Ie, the market size is large.

Implementation

We propose that the Open Source Store is a collaboratively developed set of common goods:

1. Cars
2. Houses
3. 3D printers
4. Plumbing fittings
5. Potatoes
6. Computer Tablets
7. CNC circuit mills
8. Trainable robots
9. PV panel production
10. Fuel production

And any other common consumer good. These goods are:

1. Developed fully open source, OSHWA and OSI compliant hardware and software licenses
2. Development goes up to:
3. Open source product design
4. Open source production engineering
5. Open source supply chain
6. Open source distritubed quality control
7. Production training for collaborators
8. Enterprise website templates

In other words, a person sets up one of these and runs this as a local implementation of the Open Source Microfactory concept.

Standards

1. Clear definition of Open Source Distributive Enterprise Product Standards] must be defined to specify the level of documentation and quality control required for products.
2. Standards include Admissible Performance Criteria for Open Source Production Machines - so that we certify a level of industrial productivity on a small scale that is acceptable for running a small business.
3. Product Levels are defined to be 3 fold: 1. product itself, 2, production of that product, and 3, distribution of that product. For 1, you click and buy the product itself. For 2, you click and buy the production training or microfactory that can produce that product. For 3, you click and buy a license to distribute that product via mass production. The key is that mass production is one option, and it should be kept on an equal footing with distributed production. In our view, mass production is not necessarily better than distributed production. But, because we are efficient on the small scale, our allowance for mass production assures that nobody is left behind. In a world of localized economies, distributed production should be able to compete effectively with mass production - as long as free enterprise is allowed and full cost accounting is included. Thus, the discussion shifts from regulation to full-cost accounting - which accounts for true human and environmental benefit.

Keys To Success

How is this different?

1. Integrated eco supply chains - waste to product technologies pushing the limits of industrial productivity on a small scale. And materials production from natural resources. Ex. Steel from scrap, aluminum from scrap, and cellulose nitrate or cellulose acetate from cellulose.
2. Technological recursion - supply chain mastery by using common feedstocks and starting with less finished feedstocks by relying on additional machinery to finish the feedstocks in-house. This relies on Stock Supply Chain vs Specialized Supply Chain
3. Open source blueprints - currently, there is a great lack of open source blueprints that have both accessible supply chains, distributed quality control, and open source production engineering that can be implemented in the Open Source Microfactory
4. Products must contribute to the creation of the Open Source Economy
5. High learning curve exists for participants to be able to service their product
6. Lifecycle stewardship is included - from simple supply chains.

Marketing

1. The Open Source Store has a collaboratively developed marketing function where we pool marketing resources which everyone benefits from.
2. Everyone develops robust production capacity and quality control. OSE Certified applies to any product sold.
3. OSE Certified means that a product is approved by OSE as a Distributive Enterprise. This means that OSE Certified is a Distributive Enterprise certification. Only those people who contribute to the certification are able to use the certification mark. For example, someone who did not develop the product may contribute to product improvement in some form, and only then does OSE Certified use imply added value by any new user.
4. OSE Certified is thus part of a continued product development strategy.

Phases

1. Passive Open Source Store. Background production as a sideline. Maybe 10 hours per week on customer service, the rest is passive revenue. Zero investment cost. Podcsts, True Fans, Books, Webinars, Curriculum for Schools, and swag qualify here. Require no work on part of the operator, as everything is automated. Incentive for developers becomes significant when there are good products and many non-producers in the marketplace. This is not sustainable as the only enterprise in the long run, as someone else has to take care of the real engine of production.
2. Background 2 Level. Same as 1, but involves activity such as mailing of letters and packages. No in-house material production, but includes in-house information production.
3. Microfactory Level 1 Open Source Store. The apartment enterprise. Production that anyone can run out of their home. 3D printer produces products in the background. They are self-packaged with a protective envelope via 3D printing, so the only step left is putting on a shipping label. Or, a bunch of product is shipped in a flat rate USPS envelope. Largely consists of automated production, and a small component of harvesting/shipping. Can include production of filaments, and any desktop-scale automated tasks. Gets into interesting products, such as shoes, brooms, parts kits for CNC machines.
4. Microfactory Level 2 Open Source Store. The home enterprise. Involves equipment that requires a garage, but is still a small enterprise for the householder.
5. Microfactory Level 3 Open Source Store. The homestead enterprise - once land is involved where natural resources can start getting processed on a small scale.
6. The Campus Enterprise - 10,000 square feet and acre overall - includes materials production facility for processing and recycling of metal, plastic, organics, and ceramics. Can produce anything up to PV panels from sand and cars from scrap steel.

Goals

The goal is to incentivize collaborative development of products where everyone benefits from a non-proprietary consortium.

1. Incentive structure to collaborate for economic benefit
2. Complete autonomy - you control your own store front, we all develop collaboratively
3. OSE Brand - we all subscribe to the OSE Social Contract - an aspirational level of principles. People in the collaboratory can get OSE-branded website, which is part of the enterprise
4. Incentive structure - you commit to learning and earning.
5. Learning is required for industrial productivity on a small scale

Goal

1. Goal is to create the open source economy by funding OSE's open source product development for an open source technology kernel for civilization
2. All resources are committed to R&D and installation of prototype facilities
3. OSS participants allocate revenue to an experimental facility, willingly
4. Specific implementation is a Village Campus, built around the OSS operation. We acquire land for the resource provision aspect of the operation.
5. We strive to make land the ultimate supply chain - a proposition worth many Nobel-level peace prizes.