A Role for Drupal in Movements, Communities and Platform Cooperativism

Movements

What is Drupal?

What is a Cooperative?

What is Free Software?

You cannot build a successful movement for freedom on a foundation of proprietary software. ~ FreeScholar

Free Software

Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software

Richard Stallman explains free software at TEDx Geneva:https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/TEDxGE2014_Stallman05_LQ.webm

What is Platform Cooperativism?

Platforms connect people with each other.Online platformsfrom Google to Uber and thousands more in betweenare transforming our workplaces, our relationships, and our lives. A lot of this is great. But there are some big-time problems:Tools that appear to be free often come at the cost of selling our valuable personal informationHuge monopolies are capturing important markets like search, transportation, and social networkingLabor platforms are managing to bypass worker protections like sick leave and insuranceUsers have virtually no control over the platforms that affect their lives

Cooperatives put people in charge.

Rooted in internationally agreed-on principles, such as Rochdale, successful companies like R.E.I. (a consumer-owned co-op) and Equal Exchange (a worker-owned co-op) show it makes good sense to share ownership and control. What if the Internet were more like this? There are some big-time benefits:Co-ops are more likely to pay living wages and promote community wealth

Democratic businesses experience lower failure rates and more sustainable growth

Cooperation tends to empower those on the margins of society

By serving people before profits, co-ops put us in control of the economy

Platform co-ops bring democracy to the online economy.

Platform Cooperativism is a movement spreading around the world. Its already creating a fairer kind of Internet:

If users owned their own social media, they could set terms of service in which they keep control over personal data

If gig-workers controlled their own apps, they could combine flexible schedules with the rights and benefits they need

New Bitcoin-powered blockchain technologies create possibilities for platforms with no central company in charge

Co-op platforms can cooperate with each other by building open-source software for common use

What does this look like in practice?

Stocksy is a stock-photo platform with multi-million-dollar revenues owned by its photographersFairmondo is an online marketplace for goods owned by its vendorsLoconomics is a gig platform that connects employers with worker-ownersRobin Hood Minor Asset Management is an investment fund whose members support commons-based projectsThere are many more platforms than those, and an ecosystem to support them, which were gathering in our Directory.

How can I take part?

Learn about the Platform Cooperativism conferences and explore the resources in our LibraryContribute to our Directory to help share knowledge about the platform co-op ecosystemTake part in the R&D efforts of the Platform Cooperativism ConsortiumOrganize people with legal, technical, and financial expertise to support platform co-ops in your area and coordinate globally through our

Drupal Friendly Hosting

Development environment

Drutopia is an initiative to revolutionize the way we build online tools. We're combining the principles of software freedom, community ownership and intersectional politics to co-develop technologies that meet our needs and reflect our values.

Tools such as Squarespace and NationBuilder have lowered the cost for launching a website. However, these tools are limited in functionality and push people getting into web development for a cause into the dead end of proprietary services.

Drutopia.org

Platform for Group Decisions

Organizing Campaigns

We use free software to build things

If we do not own the platforms, who will?

Upcoming events

Get Involved

Fsf.orgDrupal.orgDrutopia.orgUsworker.coopPlatformcoop.netInternetofownership.netTechworker.coop

Useful online directories

InternetOfOwnership.netFind.coopAlternativeto.net

Founders of the Platform Cooperativism Movement:Trebor Scholz, New School professor, NYC. Digital labor, learning, and global media activism.Nathan Schneider, scholar in residence of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder

Handbook for a Revolution

A new handbook is being published on Platform Cooperativism, a movement building platforms and tools owned by the people.

I am excited to have contributed an essay in the upcoming book on my experience in a worker-owned web development cooperative and how it relates to the larger picture of our future work.

Ours to Hack and to Own Edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider: The rise of Platform Cooperativism, a new vision for the future of work and a fairer Internet.

Order a copy now from OR Books:http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/ours-to-hack-and-to-own

FreeScholar

My name is Michele Metts, I am called Micky and I am known as FreeScholar in many software communities.

I am a member of Agaric, a web development technology cooperative. We mostly work with Drupal, a popular and free content management system, but we also build platforms and tools using free software. I am a public speaker reaching out to groups explaining the value of FREE software, raising awareness of issues and disseminating knowledge to people so that they can make informed decisions when defining their own cooperative business models. I facilitate discussion on building worker owned cooperatives and collectives. I am a Drupal Hacker and an Industry organizer.

Agaric.com

Resources and Links

Articles about cooperatives:http://www.thenews.coop/

The Guardian - http://bit.ly/1s83iyE

The ecologist - http://bit.ly/1oaxYyt

http://shareable.net/blog/how-to-start-a-worker-co-op

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpg4PjGtbu0 - The Sharing Economy Janelle Orsi

"Tech Cooperatives: A Better Way to Make a Living" http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP9313 with Jack Aponte of http://palantetech.com

Starting a cooperative:

http://banyanproject.coop/starting-a-news-co-op

http://npogroups.org/lists/info/tech-coop

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/workercoop/info

http://www.techworker.coop/

Mailing list:

tech-coop@npogroups.org - A tech-worker-coop-related mailing list