Movable Commons
Aus Laboratorium
Reformulierung/Alternativvorschlag zu PublicPrivateProperty.
Commons are goods and resources without owners who control how they can be used; goods and resources that are available to those who want to use them. Movable commons are physical goods that can move to those who want to use them (or the people can move to them).
A movable common can be in one of three states:
- Free: The good is available to those who want to use it.
- Bound: The good is used by someone for some purposes and hence not available to anyone else.
- Semi-free (or semi-bound): There is someone who sometimes uses this good or who wants to use it again in the future, but (s)he doesn't need the good all the time and is ready to give to other people while she doesn't need it, provided they give it back to her when she needs it.
If you have a good that you don't need all the time for yourself, you can set it semi-free; if you don't need it all all, you can set it free. By doing so, you will become the initial maintainer of the common (the person who cares for it). As maintainer, you can set some constraints on how others (users) can use they good.
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Clauses Applying to Semi-Free Commons
For semi-free commons, you choose when users should return them to you:
- Return Until (RU): The user can keep the common until a date specified by you; afterwards they must return it (unless you agree to postpone the return date).
- Return on Demand (RoD): The user can keep the common until you asks them to return it to you (or to pass it on to some other user).
- (You must choose one of the above, or else the good will effectively become free, since users don't have to return it to you.)
And you choose whether users can pass the common on to others:
- Transferable (T): The user can transfer the common and the accompanying usage agreement to others.
- Locally Bound (LB): The user can transfer the common and the accompanying usage agreement to others, but only within an area specified by you (so it won't move too far away from you).
- (If you choose neither, users can't pass on the common without your explicit agreement.)
You also choose what users should do when the common breaks down while they use it:
- Repair Required (RR): If the common breaks down during usage, you ask the user to repair it (or to replace it by a new, equivalent common, if repair would be more expensive than replacement) prior to returning it to you (or passing it on to others). It is recommended that users of commons covered by this clause join some "mutual repair club" to safeguard themselves against the risk of repair.
- (Otherwise users are not required to repair goods that break down.)
Clauses Applying to Free Commons
For free commons, you choose whether the good should stay free:
- Keep Common (KC): The user can use the common for their own purposes for as long as they like (during this time it will be bound), but if they don't need it any longer and it's still usable, they are expected to set it free again, so others can start using it.
- (If you don't choose this clause, the user can sell, rent, or trade a good that they no longer need for themselves, in which case the good would drop out of the movable commons.)
Clauses Applying to Any Commons
For both free and semi-free commons, you can choose whether you (the initial maintainer) would like to be attributed by users of the common:
- Attribution Appreciated (AA): You ask users to attribute you as initial maintainer if they share, or pass on, or publicly employ the common, if giving such attribution is practical. This is only a request, not a strict requirement, since giving attributing might be impractical or even impossible, especially when this clause is used in combination with the Keep Offspring Common (OC) clause (see below), which might cause attribution lists to become very long. Users are asked to attribute you in a manner specified by you; they must not attribute you in a way that suggests that you endorse them or their use of the common.
And if the common can be used to produce others goods (if it is a tool or a means of production), you can choose how goods produced with the help of the common should be treated:
- Keep Offspring Common (OC): Any physical goods produced with the help of the common (any "offspring") become movable commons themselves: users can use them for their own purposes (bound common) or they can set them free or semi-free, but they must not sell, rent, or trade them. Any "offspring" is automatically covered by the Keep Common (KC), and, transitively, by the Keep Offspring Common (OC) clause; if the "parent" common is covered by the Attribution Appreciated (AA) clause, the "offspring" is covered by it as well. This clause only governs the creation of new goods, it does not apply to goods repaired or maintained with the help of the common.
Why Movable Commons?
Start open list of goals.
Announcing Availability
Expand: how to announce availability of commons. OpenID/NoseRub could be used as basis for identity management.
Contract and Mutual Promise
Expand/discuss: which parts of the usage agreement are a contract (based on law) and which are a mutual promise (based on trust and reputation).
To Do
(cf. PublicPrivateProperty#Wie weiter machen ?)
- Expand missing sections and bring concept in a form that allows it to be actually used.
- Find people who want to share things in this way and start sharing
- Get in contact with related initiatives (Give-away shops/Umsonstladenszene, Nutzigems, Distributed Library Project/Leihnetzwerk, Freecycle etc.)—integration and cooperation?
- Create a website and a nice logo
- Define an API (XML, JSON, maybe microformat?) that allows sharing and searching for commons
- Create sample implementations: software for making commons available (blog-based?), search engine/repository to search for available commons
- ...
