Hi people
I’ve just sat down to do this which has activated the nerdy wordy part of my brain.
It seems that ‘Associate’ is actually slightly looser / less closely entangled than ‘Affiliate’
So we should either use ‘Partner’ and ‘Associate’ or
’Affiliate’ (Partner) and Associate
I don’t think we can use ‘branded’ instance as the definer, as there are some cases like Catalunya/Spain and previously Kandu that may not be branded OFN. There is something more about the values-alignment, purpose and organisation driving that we are trying to identify here (as beautifully outlined by @tschumilas above). And actually after my nerdy dictionary reading, I think the term Affiliate most effectively describes what this is
So I’m now counter-proposing that we use Affiliate (formerly OFN-branded partner) and Associate (non-branded, independent etc)
and because this is my ‘hour of power’ in which I am attempting to get this done, I am going to move ahead and make those changes in the pledge AND I am very happy to redo at a later time if people disagree!
I am also going to have a crack at a very loose attribution statement, that leaves open for further discussion how this should actually happen.
By the time you all wake up and see this the changes should be done here
See also OFN global community agreement / community pledge
All good with me @Kirsten . Thanks for being a nerdy wordy and for all your work on this 
Sorry I have been so busy as of late but this project is still important to us. This is the site that we have right now. http://staging.harvest2order.com/ I am in the process of changing most of the text for the site.
We have also been exploring about starting two sites. One that is harvest to order and the other one will be openfoodnetwork.us. I have been in contact with some people in Florida, Seattle, and many states in new England.
@Kirsten can I ask how is the stripe connect integration coming?
Hi @woakes070048, thanks for responding - busy is something we all understand!
It would be good to hear your thoughts / responses to the various questions above about financing, attribution etc. I have finalised the Pledge this afternoon so all good for people to start signing-on
re. your suggestion above about running a site at openfoodnetwork.us - this seems like it starts falling into the category of ‘OFN Affiliate’ and just wanted to check that the conversations about the host organisation for the “OFN USA” representative / branded instance have reached that point. Would be good to get an update on the forum on outcomes of any of those coordinating discussions / calls you’ve been having, and where USA is at re. ‘registering’ an affiliated representative and instance, as per the pledge. Would be great to know what’s going on and be able to point others in the USA in the right direction . . @tim.honchel @Selmo @eric @MikeiLL @jveilleux @neylonbill @ecocity @Angie-US @tschumilas @MyriamBoure @NickWeir etc
re. Stripe Connect - progressing but not as fast as it would be if it were properly funded - any contributions welcome!
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Thanks @Kirsten for pointing that out. I’ve been coordinating the last calls with people who contacted us from the USA.
If I understand well @woakes070048 you got some other contacts interested to join forces in building a “public OFN infrastructure” for the US, host by a local open and democratically run entity ? As a global community we’ve been discussing lately with @tim.honchel from communitysolution.org, and CommunitySolution proposed to be the host for the US public instance. This proposal was backed by the other US contacts, so Tim is waiting for an answer from funders so that CommunitySolution can carry out the project (expected in July).
Meanwhile @MikeiLL had made a demo deployment, I don’t know if you bought a domain @MikeiLL to access that demo ? I know it’s not accessible at the moment as they stopped paying for the server, but there has been some work done on it already.
So @woakes070048 I would suggest if you want to take part, beyond your Harvest2Order initiative, to the kickstart of a public US OFN branded instance, that we organize a call with the emerging local community so that you can align and coordinate on that. How does it sound to you? I’m sure that the emerging US community will be happy if you join forces in getting the OFN US public instance up and running
As written in the pledge, we want as a global community to have only one OFN branded instance on a given territory, so the community will only approve as an affiliate an initiative that is open and enable all the interested people to participate in the governance.
Echoing @MyriamBoure - I had some conversations with @tim.honchel and I know he would appreciate the help in launching a public OFN infrastructure in the US. Maybe @woakes070048 - you could offer the technical support needed.
But to @woakes070048 - This raises another question for me (and maybe I just am missing something technical here). If you are thinking of an OFN branded public infrastructure in the US (an affiliate), why wouldn’t you run your ‘harvest to order’ business on that platform versus maintaining a second platform version? The instance of OFN you’ve already set up for Harvest to Order is pretty much a branded instance anyway - so you obviously don’t have any objection to the ‘food unincorporated’ tag line and OFN brand identity. Is there a reason for 2 instances?
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I have reached out to @tim.honchel today and hope to hear back from him soon.
@Kirsten I think we might be able to free up some money to help with the stripe connect integration. For this link https://openfoodnetwork.org/user-guide/advanced-features/standing-orders/ can I assume that standing order are ready to go?
@tschumilas I figured why not. My company is an IT company and we have a lot of server resources so it not much for us to deploy another system. I was planning on having our system for our state in the US but from some of the other place in the country we have showed them the platform and they like it.
As it stand we can have a new instance ready in a matter of a couple of day and that would be production ready. With monitoring for PCI compliance. There is alot to look at for platforms like this in the states.
I have been talking to our lawyers and we were planning on starting a 501 c non profit for the organization
This is our deployment method if it interest any one. https://github.com/samjaninf/ofn-one we are using openshift.
ok cool @woakes070048
re. Stripe Connect - and launching it fully integrated with standing orders . . if we could dedicate resources to it we could have:
- testable beta of Stripe Connect on staging at the end of next week for thorough testing, including integration with the standing orders feature
- then testing, feedback, refinement . . with a view to release within master within the two weeks after that.
$3,000AUD would be an incredibly useful contribution and enable us to prioritise this work. If this sounds good to you, email me on kirsten@openfoodnetwork.org.au and I’ll send you invoice and details for payment
re. OFN USA / Affiliate instance - I think @MyriamBoure has some comments / suggestions and will await her response first. Hopefully talk to you about this soon
Great to read you @woakes070048
And nice to hear that you are thinking about creating a local non-profit to host a US base public/open OFN branded instance
If you move forward in kickstarting the set up of a US public instance, it’s pretty important to us as a community to know each other, as with “affiliates” there are various things that we end up deciding together, and that are at the core level on how are community and global project work. So we need to build trust between ourself / within our community, and for that face to face / real time conversations matters As you can see in our values, “people first” 
And we are looking forward to know more about your and get to see you in e-real life (even if virtually ;-)) !
So are you free in the coming days for a hangout ? So that we can know a bit more about yourself, tell you a bit about ourselves, and tell you also a bit about the history of the OFN in the US regarding the public/open instance that we believe are important for you to know.
And we can invite to that call the OFN affiliates who have followed / supported / facilitated the US emerging community until now and some key people in the US that we believe can be interesting players also in that.
@tim.honchel I know you are pretty busy, but it would be great if you could be there No pressure of course, people first And also @eric and @MikeiLL.
@Kirsten I let you ping other people that would really need to be there
I propose here a quick vote on the timeslot and day. There is only one common time in the day that is reasonable for us all I guess, hope that will be ok for everyone, it’s early in the US and late in Australia aine State time 6am, France time 3pm, Australian time 11pm
If you have a tension with the timeslot you can make an alternative proposal
And vote on the day below !!!
- Wednesday 7th June
- Thursday 8th June
- Friday 9th June
I understand that, given the skills and resources you have, it is relatively easy to set up additional instances. Indeed we’ve thought about different instances here in Canada too But one of the key things that makes the OFN platform different from other similar tech solutions out there, is that it is focused on building sustainable food sytems. So beyond what is useful for individual firms, farms, enterprises. Individual firms (say food hubs for example) can easily see other hubs and their suppliers on the instance and very easily access products from other hubs and, with permission, begin to build new networks(hubs) around these suppliers. So where most of the platforms out there are written for firms who treat their suppliers as proprietary to their hub, in OFN, the entire concept is to ‘unchain the food chain’, and form groups and networks. Setting up multiple different instances misses out on this important OFN advantage of trading between hubs.
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Call is confirmed Thursday 8th June, US Maine State time 6am, French time 3pm, Australian time 11pm, I sent an invitation to the people who answered the poll and added @tim.honchelin case he can join , ping @Kirsten if you want to add people.
Cheers!
I think it will be 9:00 am in Maine when it is 3:00 pm in France, and 11:00 pm in Melbourne. (Maine is the same time zone as Toronto I believe). The google invitation is correct I think.
Ok, sorry for the confusion then, I got confused myself, @woakes070048, is it still good for you? Are you located in Maine State ? Please check the time in the google invitation you received and confirm us it’s good for you, from Theresa’s comment it should be 9 am for you if you are in Maine And hope it’s still good for you @eric @MikeiLL !
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I plan to attend at 8am Central Time USA.
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hey @jveilleux - not sure if this is of interest to you or not, and most likely you would have flagged if it was, but just making sure you’ve seen it and don’t want/need to be in the call on Thursday
@MyriamBoure, I would also would like to join the call, as I am trying to help setup a whitelabel service in India, and would also invite another person @kothagunda (Sudhir) who would be involved in the implementation. Do share the details for the call.
Cheers.
Hi @sreeharsha, the call today will not be so much about white label users but really on the US OFN branded public instance (sorry for the confusion to organize that in that thread!), and getting to know William. So if needs be we can plan a call on white label use with @kothagunda (Hi Sudhir and be welcome to the community !), is that ok with you ? Do you want to set up a time @sreeharsha for that white-label call ?
@Kirsten, thanks for including me. I was traveling this week and just got back, so obviously I missed the call.
I’m willing to help get the official US OFN instance going, although it appears that @woakes070048 is both more qualified and capable. But if you feel I can be useful, let me know.
That said, it seems to me that you need more than just someone putting the instance up and keeping it running. Which probably means you need someone who’s willing to put in the time and energy to recruit farmers and hubs, work with local non-profits, etc. I can suggest an organization here in NC - asapconnections.org, although I don’t know how much they are interested in the hub model.
And I can offer some resources to whoever you find to run the project. For example, I’ve downloaded the entire USDA database of farmers markets and hubs into a CRM system.
And we are looking forward to know more about your and get to see you in e-real life (even if virtually ;-)) !