Solidarity Economy Network

to senmembers@lists.riseup.net, sen@lists.riseup.net, Marcin Jakubowski <joseph.dolittle@gmail.com> date Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:54 AM subject Open Source Ecology, SEN: An Introduction

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Dear all: The purpose of this email is to introduce the Solidarity Economy Network and Open Source Ecology to each other.

I joined the SEN, an outgrowth of the U.S. Social Forum, because with its assortment of leading organizations in the alternative economy movement, it is the most promising effort I know of at creating an umbrella organization as a whole and promoting the consolidation of the different alternative economy movements (LETS, cooperatives, credit unions, alternative energy and appropriate technology, open source and p2p) into a single, coherent counter-economy. Their website is here <http://www.populareconomics.org/ussen/>, and their member organizations are listed here <http://populareconomics.org/ussen/civicrm/profile?gid=2&reset=1&force=1&search=0>.

Open Source Ecology, working in the tradition of Village Earth and E.F. Schumacher, aims to create an open-source toolkit of machinery suitable to a village economy. Their wiki is here <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page>, and their blog here <>. Their most developed projects to date are: Compressed Earth Block press <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=CEB_Press>; OS Tractor <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Electric_Garden_Tractor>; Solar steam turbine generator <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Solar_Turbine_CHP_System>; and Sawmill <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Sawmill>.

In addition, their long list of projects for inclusion in the toolkit includes the multi-machine (a cheap, multiple purpose machine tool that can be used to create duplicates of itself from scrap metal), developed elsewhere <http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Sawmill>.

It seems to me that OS Ecology could benefit from association with the rest of the Solidarity Economy Network, and it would be a wonderful addition to the network from the SEN's standpoint. I just wanted to put y'all in touch with each other.

Best, Kevin