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Founded | September 2009 |
---|---|
Type | Non-profit association |
Focus | Commons |
Location | |
Origins | Ourproject.org |
Area served | Worldwide |
Method | Free/libre web tools and free resources |
Website | Comunes.org |
Comunes is a nonprofit organization aiming to encourage the commons and facilitating grassroots work through free software web tools. Previously known as Ourproject.org, this collective established itself as a legal entity in 2009, forming Comunes. Nowadays it serves as an umbrella organization for several projects related to the Commons. [1]
The objectives of the Communes include providing legal protection [2] to member projects, together with technical infrastructure. The organization claims [3] to be inspired by Software in the Public Interest organization, which provides similar protection to free software projects. Comunes member projects must focus on encouraging the protection or expansion of the Commons. [4] Comunes Manifesto [5] shows a view on the social movements as nodes in a social network, analysing which problems this ecosystem has [6] and proposing Comunes web tools for diminishing them.
Ourproject.org [7] is a web-based collaborative free content repository. It acts as a central location for offering web space and tools for projects of any topic, focusing on free culture and free knowledge. It aims to extend the ideas and methodology of free software to social areas and free culture in general. Thus, it provides multiple web services (hosting, mailing lists, wiki, ftp, forums, etc.) to an online community of social, [8] cultural, [9] artistic, [10] and educational [11] projects as long as they share their contents with Creative Commons licenses (or other free/libre licenses). Active since 2002, Ourproject.org hosts 1,200 projects and its services receive more than 1 million monthly visits. [12]
Kune [13] is a software platform for federated social networking and collaborative work, focusing on workgroups rather than in individuals. [14] [15] Kune aims to allow the creation of online spaces of collaborative work, where organizations and individuals can build projects online, coordinate common agendas, set up virtual meetings and join organizations with similar interests. It is programmed using GWT, on top of the XMPP protocol and integrating Wave-In-A-Box. Licensed under AGPL, it has been under development since 2007 [16] [17] and it launched a beta and production site in April 2012.
Move Commons (MC) [18] is a web tool for initiatives, collectives, and NGOs to declare and make visible their core principles. [19] [20] The idea behind MC follows the same mechanics of Creative Commons tagging cultural works, [21] providing a user-friendly, bottom-up, labelling system for each initiative, with four meaningful icons and some keywords. It aims to boost the visibility and diffusion of such initiatives, and build a network among related initiatives/collectives, allowing mutual discovery. Additionally, newcomers could easily understand the collective approach in their website, or discover collectives matching their field/location/interests with a semantic search. It has been presented in several forums. [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] Nowadays it is in beta version, but there are already a few organizations using their MC badges. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]
Comunes includes other newer projects such as Alerta, [33] the community-driven alert system, Plantaré, [34] the community currency for seed exchange, and others. [35]
Comunes has developed partnership with several organizations:
![]() | |
Founded | September 2009 |
---|---|
Type | Non-profit association |
Focus | Commons |
Location | |
Origins | Ourproject.org |
Area served | Worldwide |
Method | Free/libre web tools and free resources |
Website | Comunes.org |
Comunes is a nonprofit organization aiming to encourage the commons and facilitating grassroots work through free software web tools. Previously known as Ourproject.org, this collective established itself as a legal entity in 2009, forming Comunes. Nowadays it serves as an umbrella organization for several projects related to the Commons. [1]
The objectives of the Communes include providing legal protection [2] to member projects, together with technical infrastructure. The organization claims [3] to be inspired by Software in the Public Interest organization, which provides similar protection to free software projects. Comunes member projects must focus on encouraging the protection or expansion of the Commons. [4] Comunes Manifesto [5] shows a view on the social movements as nodes in a social network, analysing which problems this ecosystem has [6] and proposing Comunes web tools for diminishing them.
Ourproject.org [7] is a web-based collaborative free content repository. It acts as a central location for offering web space and tools for projects of any topic, focusing on free culture and free knowledge. It aims to extend the ideas and methodology of free software to social areas and free culture in general. Thus, it provides multiple web services (hosting, mailing lists, wiki, ftp, forums, etc.) to an online community of social, [8] cultural, [9] artistic, [10] and educational [11] projects as long as they share their contents with Creative Commons licenses (or other free/libre licenses). Active since 2002, Ourproject.org hosts 1,200 projects and its services receive more than 1 million monthly visits. [12]
Kune [13] is a software platform for federated social networking and collaborative work, focusing on workgroups rather than in individuals. [14] [15] Kune aims to allow the creation of online spaces of collaborative work, where organizations and individuals can build projects online, coordinate common agendas, set up virtual meetings and join organizations with similar interests. It is programmed using GWT, on top of the XMPP protocol and integrating Wave-In-A-Box. Licensed under AGPL, it has been under development since 2007 [16] [17] and it launched a beta and production site in April 2012.
Move Commons (MC) [18] is a web tool for initiatives, collectives, and NGOs to declare and make visible their core principles. [19] [20] The idea behind MC follows the same mechanics of Creative Commons tagging cultural works, [21] providing a user-friendly, bottom-up, labelling system for each initiative, with four meaningful icons and some keywords. It aims to boost the visibility and diffusion of such initiatives, and build a network among related initiatives/collectives, allowing mutual discovery. Additionally, newcomers could easily understand the collective approach in their website, or discover collectives matching their field/location/interests with a semantic search. It has been presented in several forums. [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] Nowadays it is in beta version, but there are already a few organizations using their MC badges. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]
Comunes includes other newer projects such as Alerta, [33] the community-driven alert system, Plantaré, [34] the community currency for seed exchange, and others. [35]
Comunes has developed partnership with several organizations: