Open Source - United Diversity

Open Co-ops: Inspirations, Legal Structure and Tools

this post originally appeared in Stir Magazine [https://www.stirtoaction.com/magazine] illustration by Daksheeta Pattni [https://www.daksheetapattni.com/] In 2002 I described United Diversity [https://uniteddiversity.coop] as “a member owned and stakeholder governed network of mutual advantage.” In truth, it was aspirational. At the time, the flexible

Activism

The decentralisation of Pirate Bay filesharing

Following a suggestion by Rasmus Fleischer, a leading member of the Pirate Bureau, Torrentfreak concludes [https://torrentfreak.com/its-time-to-sink-the-pirate-bay-and-replace-it-090913/] : “The Pirate Bay will dissolve, but in its place many “new TPBs” will return, just without the familiar domain name and pirate ship logo. This is very similar to a concept

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Hyperlocal file sharing: The Pirate Kiosk brings the Pirate Bay to the streets

Many sites and projects have rushed to the rescue ever since the Pirate Bay announced its intended sale [https://mashable.com/2009/06/30/breaking-the-pirate-bay-sold-for-7-8-million/] back in June. Opentracker [https://newteevee.com/2009/07/14/post-pirate-bay-a-federated-tracker-network-emerges/] wants to take over the Pirate Bay’s tracker duties, and Torrage [https://torrage.

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Wikipedia + Flickr = Fotopedia

I am a huge fan of Wikipedia, one of the greatest achievements of sharing; I also enjoy wandering around Flickr, although its lack of over-arching organisation makes that hard to do. Maybe this is perfect solution: Fotopedia [https://www.fotopedia.com/], “the first collaborative photo encyclopedia”, which uses text from

3D

MakeHuman Makes Open Source More Human

One of the canards about open source is that it only produces hardcore hacker programs – dev tools, infrastructural stuff etc. – that have little to offer the general, non-technical, *normal* user. While that may have been true ten years ago, things have moved on. For example, here’s MakeHuman [https://www.

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On Opening Up with PHP

PHP is one of the big success stories of open source, so it’s great to read this interview [https://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/how-php-became-such-a-huge-success-633591?src=rss&attr=newsintern] with its creator, Rasmus Lerdorf. I was especially struck by these words of wisdom [https://www.techradar.com/

Accomplishments

Open Everything

Today, an Open Everything [https://creativecommons.at/salon/everything] event will take place at the Paraflows Festival [https://www.paraflows.at/index.php?id=124] in Vienna, Austria. Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation is the main speaker. Franz Nahrada [https://p2pfoundation.net/Nahrada,_Franz] and Ralf Schlatterbeck [https://blog.

Accomplishments

Soil Pulverizer Annihilates Soil Handling Limits

We are glad to report that the LifeTrac [https://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=797] -mounted, open source soil pulverizer has annihilated soil-handling limits from our compressed earth brick (CEB) pressing ability. Initial testing achieved 5 ton per hour soil throughput, while The Liberator CEB press [https://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=

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How p2p Works: An Introduction

When we started talking to people about the project, we’d often find that some didn’t get how p2p works. Not that you have to understand it to use it, but if you do want to, we produced a couple of simple animations that explain how p2p works. (First,

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We need a p2p architecture for money too!

> How to best transcend the current economic mess? Put Jeff Bezos, Pierre Omidyar, Elon Musk, Tim O’Reilly, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Nathan Myhrvold, and Danny Hillis in a room somewhere and don’t let them out until they have framed a new, massively-distributed financial system, founded on sound,

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Transition Handbook Now Open Source!

I’ve been meaning to contribute for ages, but here is my first post on the P2P Foundation blog [https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-transition-handbook-now-gfdl-at-appropedia/2008/10/06] , about my role in helping to open source the wonderful Transition Handbook [https://uniteddiversity.com/transition-handbook/]

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Copyright regime vs. civil liberties

I just came across this video after reading this interview [https://www.p2pconsortium.com/index.php?showtopic=15274] Google Tech Talks July 31, 2007 ABSTRACT Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party and the international politicized pirate movement, talks about the rise and success of pirates, and why

Activism

Dialstation: Cheap International Calls from Your Mobile

Ever wondered what the best way to make international calls from your mobile [https://dialstation.com] is? Well, the answer is Dialstation [https://dialstation.com]. There are lots of ways to an initiate a call (including a facebook app [https://apps.facebook.com/dialstation/]) but the one I’ve personally

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Drupal for web2.0 / briefing 25th October - workshops 1st and 7th November

*Free* briefings and workshops to open source your creative business | /Drupal for web2.0: how to move fast with this new Open Source toolkit/ __REMINDER___________________________________________________________ The ‘Open for Business’ programme continues *this Thursday* 25th October with the Drupal for Web2.0 briefing: come get an overview and jumpstart into using

Activism

Caracas Trollparty 2006: Part 1

Caracas Trollparty 2006 [https://caracas.trollparty.org] Wednesday 25th Janauary, Caracas. My first few days in Caracas have been quite an experience. On Saturday a couple of guys tried to snatch my camcorder at gunpoint, and on Tuesday evening I spoke live to the nation on Radio National Venezuela. It