US Discussion: does ofn need a killer app?

Hi OFN Humans!!

This is my first post. Not sure if this conversation is still alive somewhere else, but I’m interested. Usually I live in Montana, I’m traveling at the moment. OFN is super cool!!! So many great ideas, and dedicated people doing good work, I am feeling really excited. I want to help.

I’m a somewhat experienced Sys Admin, been running my own servers for 12+ years. And light programming in php, ruby, and javascript too. I am definitely not an experienced developer, but I understand linux environments decently well, and I’m competent with GIT and rails and webservers, and I have been wanting to continue my development skills.

(I don’t have a fulltime job at the moment either, so besides travelling, and maybe a yoga cert, and some farming I am pretty free for the foreseeable future)

@Angie-US are you still working on a US project? I’d love to help, I will be in range of internet access again in about a week, but figured I’d go ahead and chime in now. I came across OFN from Luke Smith, who learned about it from @Selmo I gather.

Also, for what it’s worth, some context about where i come from. I’m a total food centered human. I’m absolutely convinced that food relationships and systems are an incredible leverage point for changing the world. I think everything is connected to food. I love fresh non processed milk, i like to eat raw meat, i sometimes drink unfiltered water from lakes, rivers, and streams

Some authors that have had big impacts on my life and worldview, Vladimir Megre, Ivan Illich, Martin Prechtel, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, David Abram.

Looking forward to getting to know some of you good humans in the near future.

best wishes,
Jared

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Hey @Jared-US, welcome to the community :smiley:

There are many many issues in the repository looking for some love from willing and able developers, and it would be wonderful to have you contributing to the codebase if you have some time. We’re all located in various parts of the world, I’m part of the Australian team who act as the custodians of the release process and code base, but we have a great bunch of people also contributing in other parts of the world.

You can check out the OFN codebase on GitHub here: https://github.com/openfoodfoundation/openfoodnetwork

I’m sure @Angie-US and @eric and @MikeiLL will be in touch in terms of setting things up in the US, but if you’d like to become part of the team working on the core codebase then you would be more than welcome! We all chat on slack, so say the word and I can add you on there so you can get some help setting up a local version and getting an understanding of how it all works.

Happy travels,
Danni

Hello @Jared-US. Sounds like a great fit for our small US Team. Just messaged you my email. Looking forward to connecting.

When’s the next call for the US team? I’m willing to help with server deployment & documentation. i also have contacts with farmer organizations.

I think some market analysis of the US would be apt. There’s no lack of tech companies trying to squeeze blood from stones by making local food marketplaces. If there’s a nonprofit version that is easy to use lots of smaller farms would go for it.

I don’t know know what the server fees would run but if you were transparent with were the money goes I think you could sustain it with a patreon or something similar.

I think working with ATTRA would make sense. They are one of the national hubs for open access progressive farming information.

I think doing a OFN webinar with eorganic would be another good way to get exposure to producers.

It’s probably an easier first step to get financial sponsorship from an existing NGO than to incorporate right off the bat.

Food banks & farmer’s markets associations would be a natural partners.

I second Eric’s notion about meat pre-sales being a good starting place to use OFN. I’m not sure with a native app would be more useful than the web interface tough. What specific features are lacking in the software now that you would want in an app? What payment services are there now?

It’s not letting me post more than two links at a link so here’s a a pastebin with examples of existing commercial american projects in this realm.

localharvest/csaware, goodeggs, oklahoma food cooperative, localdirt, food-hub, farmigo…

https://www.piratepad.ca/p/Farm_Direct_Marketing_SAAS_companies

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Great feedback. I’m not sure when our next meeting is at the moment, but we are in the process of installing an instance within which to hopefully migrate the data from an existing group into a Pilot US Hub.

Just messaged you my email address.

Mike

Hi @mundotazo and @Jared-US. I’m really excited to have you on board! We have had fits and starts of getting close to roll out and then other projects taking a front seat. We have an awesome umbrella org for the moment, Healthy Acadia, looking to implement the features of Farm Drop for a pretty big pilot with lots of users in Maine.

Hannah Semler is our contact there and Colin is the main Farm Drop tech guru. I’m trying to get them to login here to participate in this discussion. Likewise, maybe I can loop @mundotazo and @Jared-US into our email chain to schedule the next call?

I think we’re looking at possible times at 10AM ET on April 26,27,27, May 2 or 3.