Governance of the commons: inputs from

International Governance
4

Thank you for this very detailed contribution @serenity and I would LOVE to work with you on the task you mention.
Than you also for the links, I joined the CTA Hylo group and added Open Food Network in the ecosystem mapping :wink: I think it would be very consistent if the OFN could join the Alliance and adopting the seal :slight_smile:
I also found in the thread this very good piece, Ostromā€™s Design Principles for Collective Governance of the Commons. I donā€™t know if you read that before starting OFN but itā€™s impressive how OFN is aligned with that vision :wink:

I think we could even list the different tasks we need to work on around governance, and for each of them kickstart a specific discussion on Discourse (that could eventually lead to a decision on Loomio - as you say, letā€™s discuss it at the HO on Tuesday).

  • Write a common formulation of our goal, vision, mission, values (process have started already, but would be great to come up with something we can collectivelly adopt)

  • Structure a process for accepting new members and I would add also for excluding member (what is the permeable membrane of our community? Rules for coming in and out). I like the idea of the Seal document, but Iā€™m not sure about if we should have a formal agreement if someone want to join the OFN Alliance. I like the idea that anyone is free to join if what we write/do resonates with them. Then if someone has a tension with how one of the partners behave, maybe we could just ā€œhold a (public?) spaceā€ where tensions can be expressed and processed. And of course if the partner doesnā€™t respect what he engaged him on (the values, etc.) and if the tension processing doesnā€™t work (tension is not solved) then the partner should leave the cell (cross the membrane again).
    I was very inspired also by ā€œreinventing organizationsā€.
    Should we have an ā€œairlockā€ at the entrance, and filter at that stage ā€œare you aligned with our community? Let us checkā€ or let all those for whom our values and mission resonates join, and maybe they will transform themselves by operating in our community, and through tension processing we can all move forward together. That sounds a bit more inclusive to me :wink: By default, we trust you. If we feel a tension, we express it and have a constructive process to solve the tension. If we really realize there is an incompatility of vision, probably that would be so obvious that the partner would himself go out. Or we can define a process where at some point, if the situation is locked the community decideā€¦
    Same for commercial actors, I am not sure we should limite the use of OFN and have an ā€œagreement processā€ also on that (agreement processes seems a bit heavy to me!) but rather recognize and give visibility to those who use OFN but also give back (transparency and positive appreciation/feedback). If a commercial actor use OFN, and for his commercial propose develop new features that will benefit the whole community (the licence oblige him to share), it sounds ok to me. I like the broad notion of freedom, and anyone can use the software (but of course limit the use of the brand and advertise those who play by the rules and contribute also). The gift economy is for me ā€œunconditionalā€ :wink:

  • Write a process on distributing the value (to projects / people?). I think this is crucial to open a discussion on that point, even if that may take some time until we find how to organize that. I like your idea about using co-budget, I would definitey be in favor of giving it a try. Of course for this to be relevant we need to have money that comes in (either from crowdfunding, contributions from instances, etc.) There are two other tools that have a slightly different approach from Co-budget, but I find them also interesting: https://liberapay.com and https://gratipay.com/. Itā€™s a mis between the micro-regular-donation approach but also including a distribution system between the contributors. There is no ā€œprojectā€ approach like in Co-budget thoughā€¦ so maybe for the Global OFN I would favor co-budget (but we should be aware not to only propose feature based projects, I think other tasks like community building, fundraising, etc. should be recognized also on a financial dimension).
    Here is a screenshot of Co-budget (from an open discussion in the OuiShare Loomio)

    Screen_Shot_2016-01-02_at_5.29.00_pm.png675Ɨ744 110 KB

    Here Gratipay is compared with Patreon: https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/w/en/othercrowdfunding
    But maybe gratipay and liberapay are more interesting for local teams because it focuses more on people than projectsā€¦ I donā€™t know!
    And yes youā€™re write @serenity itā€™s important to clarify the local vs global fundraising and money distribution among contributors on those two levels (of course we only need to agree on the global level, local is for local to decide :smile: )

  • Should we agree on joining the CTA and adopting the Seal? It sounds like a place we should beā€¦

That was also a veryyyyy long post, Iā€™m too passionate about the topic I guess :slight_smile: Letā€™s discuss on Tuesday and see if we can kickstart discussions seperately on all those points so that it gets more readable! Thank you @serenity for orienting the discussion toward concrete action :slight_smile: