Action Project 04: building and launching Open Source Money

Issue

National Currencies are scarce, expensive (= interest based), issued from private hands (banks), undemocratic, unconstitutional because they generate social inequalities. Their scarcity and cost are deserving human needs and human rights, specially today because markets have increased in size, globalism and complexity, and because we are entering into a knowledge economy that is antagonistic to exclusive competition.

Project description

Open Money is the next unavoidable step to global democracy. It gives the freedom to any group of people (physical or values territory, a company, a network...) to create their own means of exchange and not be dependent on the scarce national currencies issued and owned by private banks.

The currency system will more likely be called CC as for « Community Currency ».

See Open Money Home Page.

Methodology - Strategy

Open Source Money will succeed with the mix of the following actions:

• Dedicated people
• Strong echoing and networking of ideas, actions, vision
• Find seed funding
• Free Software platforms
• Open Source methodologies, algorithms and concepts (no intellectual property)
• A manifesto?
• Implementation on physical (cities, organizations...) and virtual (social networks, market platforms...) territories

Milestones and Agenda

A good part of the project is in a concrete phase now:

• Dedicated people: see participants below
• Strong echoing and networking: TheTransitioner itself + the Open Money site built by Michael Linton and Ernie Yacub
• Find seed funding: being worked on now, shortest way to money tasks are being done. Related material and wiki pages will be put in TheTransitioner shortly.
• Open Source Software Platforms: versions alpha already available. See Simulation game. Requirements and analysis for further development are captured on the Open Money Software Requirements and Analysis page
• Open Source Methodologies, algorithms and concepts: will come later when the whole project is at more mature stage
• The open money manifesto?: on its way too.
• Implementation:
  • Physical territories: Michael Linton is currently working on projects in London. Other projects in other big cities may quickly join in.
  • Virtual territories: social networks (Ryze, LinkedIn, Ecademy, Tribes, ManyOnes...) and collaborative platforms (SourceForge, Tikiwiki...) are potential targets. Some of them have already been contacted and are already exploring possibilities.
    • action : Sat May 8 23:02:29 CEST 2004
      opening space for development project on http://gna.org/projects/openmoney

Similar or related projects

As the current project is the congruence between TheTransitioner and OpenMoney platforms and projects, it seems to be the most advanced one today.

• via3.net is building a trade platform with the via currency
• Strohalm is working on similar projects
• Access Foundation, initiated by Bernard Lietaer
• At SourceForge:
  • a port in java made a year ago, rather quiet now.
  • Web enabled LETSystems
  • ROCS (Robust Complementary Community Currency System)
  • Fair Money

• Cacanet.org (Citizen's Association for Certification Authority network Fukuoka): Japanese non-profit of IT engineers which tries to apply its electronic authorization system for the use of complementary currencies (don't laugh about the name if you speak French and/or Spanish!). They can be asked for some technical support if we implement an electronic system.
• Geek Credit, project brought by Alexander Komarov
• Targeted Currencies: as you can read on their web site, their mission is to "Design, develop and implement systems and technologies that leverage incentives, currencies, and exchanges to improve the flow of resources for people, organizations, and communities".
• Cyclos: a Java-based software platform for community currencies that is soon to be open sourced, see this IJCCR posting.

Participants

Please add your name to the list if you want to participate in the project.

• Jean-François Noubel
• Michael Linton
• Ernie Yacub
• Mose
• Phil Jones
• Lorinc Czegledi
• Paul Makepeace?
• Alan Skea
• François Rey
• Daniel Tygel

Budget

Estimated 100,000 € seed capital for full development and launching in a 1 year global phase.

Funding

Funding may come from private donations, institutional funding, corporate foundations, European Commission... Once the « shortest way to money » tasks are performed, these players will be contacted.

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