Purpose of Project Oekonux (was: Re: [ox-en] Bye folks)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 09:05:44 +0100
Hi Michel and all!
2 days ago Michael Bouwens wrote:
Perhaps this is a good moment to remind newcomers like me what the
Oekonux project intented to achieve?
I think the text on the front page [http://www.oekonux.org/] still
describes it well:
In Project Oekonux different people with different opinions and
different methods study the economic and political forms of Free
Software. An important question is, whether the principles of the
development of Free Software may be the foundation of a new economy
which may be the base for a new society.
"economic"/"economy" and "political" are meant in a wide sense here.
So as far as the organizational side is concerned the basic goal of
the project is to deliver a useful framework for this discourse. The
place to consider what is useful and how to operationalize this is on
[pox] [http://www.oekonux.org/project/] where people join who are
concerned enough to do such work.
As far as the content side is concerned all contributions furthering
the discussion are useful. The higher their quality the better.
An expectable result of this discussion are some concentrated results.
A very abridged version of this can be found on
http://www.oekonux.org/introduction/blotter/. One of the next steps in
the not too far future is to revise and enhance this since a couple of
newer results are not contained there.
Project Oekonux is not a political project - though it is concerned
with political topics. It is more a research project where
contemporary, observable phenomenons are considered and it is tried to
integrate them into a consistent theoretical framework. Of course
quality on all levels is useful for this.
To express it in more theoretical words: To further the self-unfolding
/ Selbstentfaltung of the participants as well as the general public
is certainly a goal of the project. In this it is very similar to Free
Software.
For me the value lies in the high quality dialogue and exchange,
Completely in line with the above.
which in turn is one of the different sources that can makes one
action and thinking in the world more productive.
I share your approach. In particular I like that there are different
sources each in its own right.
So I appreciate
the debate going on, and the interventions of Stefan, Franz and
others which are civil and useful.
:-)
BTW: Sorry for not yet responding to a couple of interesting posts. I
will but it is probably better to not hold your breathe ;-) .
What I am concerned the simple idea that free software is a new
mode of production and that we could move towards a GPL-based
society model, is more than enough to 'historically justify'
Oekonux's existence, whatever it further shortcomings.
I think every project has its shortcomings - in a way this is
inevitable. However, the chances to improve should be used and I think
everyone concerned enough with the project tries this.
In terms of your 'ideological production' it is a little more
difficult for me to judge, since much of the Oekonux material is
hard to find in the archives, or done in German, which I can't
read.
Absolutely. Right now we are thinking about organizational measures to
help the project to integrate the German and international discourse.
If this is successful I guess the problem outlined above is at least
smaller.
Did you have any 'material' goals?
No. In particular nobody is payed by the project.
As far as the financial side of the project is concerned there are
basically two things. One is to finance the common technical
infrastructure and the other is to finance the conferences. For the
conferences we look for sponsors and so far we were quite successful
in this. The day to day expenses for the technical infrastructure are
not too much so they are not much of a problem.
Once all this has been done by me alone - including the financing of
the infrastructure - but today there is a German registered
association (Projekt Oekonux e.V.) which is the official legal body
for the community in case such a beast is needed. This registered
association is totally dependent on the community and has no life on
its own. It is just an interface to the legal framework of the world
outside.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
and send out in the evening of the day it is written. It
does not take any information into account which may have
reached my mailbox since yesterday evening.
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de