Re: [Discuss] Open Hardware Cooperative

[Bryan Bishop]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 3:24 PM, Yoonseo Kang <ykan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've just publicly launched our indiegogo campaign to kickstart our open
> hardware cooperative. We'd really appreciate your support and help with
> spreading the word.

Could you stop spamming everywhere? We get it, you want money. You
have kept sending the same email for days. Maybe try something else if
this isn't working, like not spamming. Also, I highly recommend
working on open source projects prior to raising money (even if you're
claiming OSE/Thiel) because OSE doesn't exactly have a good reputation
for pumping out actively-maintained open source projects.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Yoonseo Kang]

Hey everyone! This is Yoonseo from Open Tech Forever.

We've just publicly launched our indiegogo campaign to kickstart our open hardware cooperative. We'd really your support and help with spreading the word.

Thanks!~

[Yoonseo Kang]

We've sent it once, as far as I know- I apologize if otherwise. No need to be biting Bryan.

We have worked on open source projects on-site with OSE, which has not been an epic oshw project pumper indeed but a decent, well-publicized oshw non-profit nonetheless. And we've gone through the worst of situations there, with a diverse lot of experiences and insights we're taking with us. Trust me, they count.

Best,

Yoonseo

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[Billy Smith]

Hi Yoonseo.

I have a few questions about the worker's co-op that you are setting
up.


1. I've looked at worker's co-op's in the UK, Radical routes,
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/ for example. Or there's the Somerset
Rules for co-ops, http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules You're based
in the US, which is a different legal environment.

What sort of business structure are you going to use?

2. Who's going to own the assets of the co-op?

3. What contingency plans have you got for recovering from failure?

4. What contingency plans have you got for dealing with success?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm interested because i'd like to do something similar in the UK.

On 20 Apr, 17:04, Yoonseo Kang <ykang...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've sent it once, as far as I know- I apologize if otherwise. No need to
> be biting Bryan.
>
> We have worked on open source projects on-site with OSE, which has not been
> an epic oshw project pumper indeed but a decent, well-publicized oshw
> non-profit nonetheless. And we've gone through the worst of situations
> there, with a diverse lot of experiences and insights we're taking with us.
> Trust me, they count.
>
> Best,
>
> Yoonseo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanz...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Nathan Cravens]

Best of luck with the project, Yoonseo. 

The campaign is posted on the Open Manufacturing G+ page as well. 

[Matt Maier]

The idea of a cooperative is interesting. I assume y'all had enough of the dictator model. But, you know, just saying "we're going to be a coop" isn't saying much. Do you guys have a more specific plan? What legal structure are you going to use for the coop? Are there already members ready to join? Is there an established organization providing support or guidance? I see farming on the list, and selling produce seems pretty straight forward. Also "R&D" or "making" which I suppose would be a hackerspace; newer but there's proven success there. What does "consumer products" mean? Like, a retail store, or does it just mean selling the things the members make?

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-tech-forever-r-d-factory-for-open-source-industrial-hardware?c=home

Your indiegogo title specifically says industrial hardware. Are you planning to build the GVCS machines?

Cheers,

Matt

[Yoonseo Kang]

Yeah, we certainly had enough of that model. We do have a specific plan that we discussed together back at FeF (not set in stone yet though, details to be worked out and documented), and the legal structure is most likely LLC or general partnership. Member-wise, other than Aaron, Tristan, Johnathan, and myself, we're working with some awesome local collaborators already, and more looking forward to the success and replication.

We have the support of the Thiel Foundation and their mentors, who are hundreds of industry and business leaders and professionals so that's really good guidance that we fortunately have access to. We're in the midst of coordinating with other organizations to receive support and guidance as well.

The R&D is going to be developing, documenting, and making improved versions of modern and cutting-edge hardware technologies. By consumer products we just meant everyday end-user items like various home appliances and devices. And of course, industrial hardware too, the scope containing the GVCS but with different priorities especially with machines outside the GVCS scope. Our 4 R&D priorities are economical commercialization, practical replicability, R&D acceleration, and realistic doability.

Best,

Yoonseo

--

[Bryan Bishop]

On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Could you stop spamming everywhere? We get it, you want money. You

Wow, subscribing everyone to your newsletter spam list. Not cool. You should ask people to opt-in instead of opt-out.

[Billy Smith]

Have you looked at the Somerset Rule's Co-operatives?

http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules

They allow a co-operative structure, but allow for external
investment. It might be worth a little research, to see if you can get
something similar in your own legal environment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you considered letting people to apply for membership?

If you are using a co-operative structure, then you must have got some
plans for dealing with this.

I was surprised that you didn't have this on your kickstarter rewards.

If you're asking people for money, it makes sense to give equity...

> >http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-tech-forever-r-d-factory-for-o...

[m d]

I don't understand the hostility to this particular project. I haven't seen any flood of spam from
them as accused. I looked over their site, noticed Joe Justice of Wikispeed contributed to the
project, and he probably has previous contact with the founders when they were at OSE, so I would
take his contribution as a valid seal of approval.

Are there some back channel politics going on?

On 5/2/2013 6:53 AM, 4ndy wrote:
> I have quite a frank question for you and your colleagues, Yoonseo: why did you choose Flexible
> Funding for your indiegogo campaign, and since you currently only have $3700 of your $50,000 goal
> with 12 days of your 1-month campaign remaining, which isn't even enough to pay for the concrete
> that you wanted, let alone all the supporting structure, insulation, fittings, machines, etc.
> <http://opentechforever.com/img/Price-Graph.png>, what do you plan to do with your supporters' money
> if you can't build the factory that you promised to write a book about building? Are you going to
> seek investments from Thiel and his friends?
>
> I'm baffled as to how you could have thought it would be a good idea to build /an entire
> conventional factory from scratch/, using crowdsourced money to kickstart a for-profit business
> without offering any practical consumer products as funding perks, while saying that you want to
> sell consumer products and "By consumer products we just meant everyday end-user items like various
> home appliances and devices", and that your top priorities include "realistic doability". Did it
> never occur to any of you that you might be rushing into such an idea, that maybe you should have
> prepared some details of what exactly you could sell, and actually offer it?
>
> At the moment it looks like you guys will just have to build a high-quality CEB press and use that
> to build your factory if you want to keep your credibility, and maybe that's what you should have
> proposed to begin with, or else grab some spades and sandbags or whatever comes to hand and start
> building yourselves an earthship structure.

>
> On Thursday, 2 May 2013 12:16:19 UTC+1, Billy Smith wrote:
>
>
> Have you looked at the Somerset Rule's Co-operatives?
>

> http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules <http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules>

> <http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-tech-forever-r-d-factory-for-o.>..

> >
> > > Your indiegogo title specifically says industrial hardware. Are you
> > > planning to build the GVCS machines?
> >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Matt
> >
> > > --
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> > > .
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[Bryan Bishop]

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 2:26 PM, m d <2md...@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't understand the hostility to this particular project. I haven't seen any flood of spam from
them as accused. I lo

They posted the same message to multiple different mailing lists. separately, with different email/thread ids. The other issue was that they subscribed a bunch of people to their newsletter/spam campaign without their permission. That's bad.

[Billy Smith]

On 2 May, 20:31, Bryan Bishop <kanz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 2:26 PM, m d <2md...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't understand the hostility to this particular project. I haven't
> > seen any flood of spam from
> > them as accused. I lo
>
> They posted the same message to multiple different mailing lists.
> separately, with different email/thread ids.

That's a minor iritation at worst.

>The other issue was that they
> subscribed a bunch of people to their newsletter/spam campaign without
> their permission. That's bad.

That's a more serious issue. Spamming is bad!

However that's not the worst of their mistakes.

They haven't got a plan, workable or otherwise, for organising and
running this kind of enterprise.

Yoonseo, please take a look at this, http://evrard.perso.enseeiht.fr/AOC/fablab-instructable.pdf

It's the Fab-Lab-in-a-week instructable from Amersfoort. Entirely self-
boot-strapped. They don't owe anyone anything.

And they own it entirely. No borrowing money, or owing favours. It
paid for itself within three months.

And with the tools that they've got, you could construct the tools you
need, to make the workshop to produce the GVCS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The question of ownership is an important one too.

They're asking for people to donate money, and giving out t-shirts,
stickers and mouse-mats, in return.

I don't want those plastic doo-dads.

I want equity.

If it's a real co-operative, then i'll have voting rights as part of
my membership. I'll have the right to come in and use the facilities,
and hopefully, improve and extend them. :D

If it's a real co-operative, i'll have the responsibility for upkeep
and maintenance on the facilities, that i own in common with all of
the other members of the co-operative.

If you don't have those rights and responsibilities, then you don't
own it and it's not really a co-operative.

[Yoonseo Kang]

@flexiblefunding: the campaign intention was to follow through regardless of the extent of campaign success.

@factoryfromscratch: we're not mining from a quarry or anything like that. It doesn't take much time or money, relatively speaking in construction.

@realisticdoability: realistic doability is for tech development. We wanted to ensure that by focusing on one project at a time, especially something as big as a building. Not fixedly deciding on a product yet was for sake of timing also (it takes time to decide on a realistically doable product and limits dev flexibility, and waiting to do that delays construction funding/building).

@hostility: I'm not sure of the hostility either. There's nothing backdoor going on. We're honestly trying to make things work out for the cooperative the best we can, as timely as we can.

@postedsamemsgtomultiplemailinglists: is posting to different mailing lists a bad thing?

@subscribedrandompeople: I don't know of this. No specific complaints either so noone told me anything about this. Bryan was the only one but he was talking about the groups, for which I didn't know they got subscribed either- it was only supposed to be for the 1st send-out.

@workableplan: if you mean the non-technical back-end, yes we do. We've discussed this at length at FeF. We've still got some specifics to work out, involving choosing between the open invitation model and otherwise of cooperatives.

@toolstheyvegotconstructGVCS: nope. it's not possible to construct the GVCS in a garage or arts and crafts space. A concrete floor, enough space, and industrial tools are essential if building any large industrial machines. We're talking about several thousand dollars rent per month easy for such a space.

@equity: equity and voting rights- It is true that in terms of stakeholders for open R&D, people off-site do benefit. We just weren't decided on the specific process quite yet.

@realcooperative: a real cooperative has 2 things- worker ownership (equity held among members) and democratic processes. A process by which people can gain equity into the cooperative is indeed important.

@hostilityfromthisidea: given the open source nature of things, encouraging replication/starting out independently is the overall intention- I think that is clear?

@expectedbetter: we got our feedback from several experienced campaigners.

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:18 PM, 4ndy <andrew.jam...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some of the hostility could come from this sort of idea, since they have founded a new body that may have to repeat a lot of the networking and groundwork already done by OSE instead of working out their issues with Marcin, but I think this crowdfunding project in particular was a daft idea, based upon its target and the few ridiculous things that were offered to people supporting such a startup, which I'm sad to say is too often par for kickstarters, but with the experience and connections that they proudly announce, I would have expected better from them.

--

Open Tech Forever

Co-Founder / Co-Director

yoo...@opentechforever.com

[Adam B. Levine]

I think the hostility comes from those like myself who see overly ambitious crowdfunding campaigns make the same mistakes over and over again.   Especially in a "flexible funding" situation, sometimes people throw money down a hole from which nothing is ever produced and it's frustrating that those resources are being "wasted" on projects doomed to fail for lack of realistic forecasting.

It's all about managing expectations, why is it better for you to build a new space rather than buy something vacant?  It can't be cheaper unless you're donating your labor and just looking for material costs, and even then why reinvent the wheel?  It's a depression out there, no shortage of empty manufacturing space.

Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin!
Collaborators! Apply Here to be added to my Rolodex
ad...@letstalkbitcoin.com

[Billy Smith]

Hey Yoonseo,

Good to hear from you.

> @subscribedrandompeople: I don't know of this. No specific complaints
> either so noone told me anything about this. Bryan was the only one but he
> was talking about the groups, for which I didn't know they got subscribed
> either- it was only supposed to be for the 1st send-out.
>

It could be if Bryan is subscribed to multiple Open Hardware mailing
lists, and he's got them set to send him emails, rather than reading
them as a web forum, then it could come across as spammy...

> @workableplan: if you mean the non-technical back-end, yes we do. We've
> discussed this at length at FeF. We've still got some specifics to work
> out, involving choosing between the open invitation model and otherwise of
> cooperatives.
>

Cool. I'd like to hear more about that side of things. I'm based in
the UK, so i only know the specifics of setting up a co-operative,
within the UK legal environment.

I've lived in housing co-op's before, and i'm part of a group that's
trying to set one up. Co-operatives can work well, when they are run
well, but when they're run poorly, they're bloody awful.

I was trying to make sure that you knew what you were getting into...

> @toolstheyvegotconstructGVCS: nope. it's not possible to construct the GVCS
> in a garage or arts and crafts space. A concrete floor, enough space, and
> industrial tools are essential if building any large industrial machines.
> We're talking about several thousand dollars rent per month easy for such a
> space.
>

I'm a member of London Hackspace. I know exactly what you mean. We've
just moved to a bigger workspace, and it's only just now that we've
got the room to contemplate making some of the machines from the GVCS.

I'm working on improving our metal-casting facilities. We were working
with a jewellery sized kiln, so we were limited to around 25cc of
metal. It was enough to cast new parts for the min-lathe, but nothing
really bigger.

We built a gingery furnace in the summertime, but we could only use it
at night, to stop the neighbours from complaining.

A larger yardspace is a good thing to have access to.

> @equity: equity and voting rights- It is true that in terms of stakeholders
> for open R&D, people off-site do benefit. We just weren't decided on the
> specific process quite yet.
>
> @realcooperative: a real cooperative has 2 things- worker ownership (equity
> held among members) and democratic processes. A process by which people can
> gain equity into the cooperative is indeed important.
>

It's some of the most important questions with any of this.

Who owns it?
How do the decisions get made?
What happens if it falls apart?
Who decides where the profits go?

Get that right at the beginning, and you will save yourself a lot of
future headaches.

> @hostilityfromthisidea: given the open source nature of things, encouraging
> replication/starting out independently is the overall intention- I think
> that is clear?

Yes.

I'd be interested in hearing more about these sort of things.

Oneclicks.org have been working on simplifying the incorporation of
organisations like this. Again, because they're based in the UK, a lot
of their work has been specific to the UK legal environment. I know
they'd be interested in templates that would work for legal
environments in other countries.

Have you got in touch with Mondragon in Spain? They've managed to get
a more integrated organisational structure, so starting and
successfully running co-op's is a lot simpler.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the stuff that i mentioned about the Amersfoort Fablab, it was
only an example of another way of doing things.

Borrowing and begging for funding can work, but it always comes with
strings attached.

Bootstrap is better...

> @expectedbetter: we got our feedback from several experienced campaigners.
>

> On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 4:18 PM, 4ndy <andrew.james.drumm...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Some of the hostility could come from this sort of idea<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE>,

> >> > <http://opentechforever.com/**img/Price-Graph.png<http://opentechforever.com/img/Price-Graph.png>>,

> >> >    http://www.somerset.coop/**somersetrules<http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules><
> >>http://www.somerset.coop/**somersetrules<http://www.somerset.coop/somersetrules>>

>
> >> >     They allow a co-operative structure, but allow for external
> >> >     investment. It might be worth a little research, to see if you can
> >> get
> >> >     something similar in your own legal environment.
>

> >> >     ------------------------------**------------------------------**----------------

> >> >     > >http://www.indiegogo.com/**projects/open-tech-forever-r-**
> >> d-factory-for-o<http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-tech-forever-r-d-factory-for-o>.
>
> >> >     <http://www.indiegogo.com/**projects/open-tech-forever-r-**
> >> d-factory-for-o<http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/open-tech-forever-r-d-factory-for-o>.>..

>
> >> >     > > Your indiegogo title specifically says industrial hardware. Are
> >> you
> >> >     > > planning to build the GVCS machines?
>
> >> >     > > Cheers,
> >> >     > > Matt
>
> >> >     > > --
> >> >     > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the
> >> Google Groups
> >> >     > > "Open Manufacturing" group.
> >> >     > > To unsubscribe from this group
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Tux Lab]

I am sort of on a parallel track. I want to build a social
enterprise base on manufacturing products, hopefully open source
hardware, but at this stage it's just building anything that can
generate revenue. Despite all the equipment accumulated so far, I
am still a long way from being able to build up a physical co-op
space.

Initially I thought of doing a open source manufacturing focused
hackerspace. I subscribed to a few mailing lists and held demos but
didn't generate enough sustained interest. The fabrication crowd is
scared off by the open source element, the open source crowd is not
that interested in heavy machinery, then the social conscious crowd is
interested in neither.

Anyway, in any social enterprise, inevitably ownership and profit
sharing will come up. For my version of the co-op, I think fiscal
and intellectual transparency is one way to resolve the thorny issue
of ownership. Everyone involved has the same opportunity to learn
from each other and knows exactly where and how the money is being
spent.

John

[Billy Smith]

I've been thinking more about this issue.

I've also seen that your Indiegogo campaign has only 6 days left to
run and you're still well short of the funding you need.

Have you looked at http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/rootstock-ethical-investment-scheme.html
? It's a scheme where you can be funded by a group of co-ops, a bit
like issuing a bond. They tend to work with UK co-op's mostly. I don't
know if they've ever funded co-op's in other countries, but there may
be parallel schemes in the US.

Also, have you looked at http://goteo.org/about ? They may be a better
option than Indiegogo.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a few of us who are planning on building some of the GVCS at
the london Hackspace.

> ...
>
> read more »