Luke Morey



Location: Brisbane, Australia

I'm a true fan.

I'm an IT guy by trade. Mostly Microsoft system administration, but I've got some web skills, and enough open source experience from the last 15 years. I can drive a Linux box, Ubuntu or CentOS/Fedora/Redhat, and have some experience with Mediawiki/CiviCRM/Wordpress etc.

These days I'm an IT manager, with 6 years of managing technical teams, and an eye for what works, what needs to change, strategically & operationally.

I'm interested to help with web content & collaboration systems.

I think the GVCS idea combines all kinds of big shifts in the world today: and more.
 * open source collaborative design
 * the maker movement
 * cognitive surplus, as Clay Shirky calls it
 * developing local fuel sources including biomass - crucial for a post-carbon world
 * permaculture

I think the big challenges will be organisational.
 * Attracting enough project leaders
 * Collaboration infrastructure - a standard toolset for design & collaboration
 * Setting up governance for managing funding
 * The ability to scale out as fast as desired (50 functioning prototypes in 2 years!)
 * Getting other groups replicating the designs
 * Balancing manufacturing time - testing & developing the open source business model in reality - against developing designs, and developing the organisation/connecting people

When I look at the next things the project might need to focus on, I see:
 * Targeting and encourage other groups who try to replicate the designs in practice. That's the way to get things snowballing.  It will also lead to improved instructions (they'll ask about what they don't understand) and more collaborators.
 * Narrowing down on a few key designs at a time. As much as I like the big goal of all 50 GVCS designs in 2 years, the danger is they're all 10% done & not getting traction.  Better to have ten designs that are going gangbusters being used around the world.  It will snowball up from there.  [OS software analogy: Linus Torvalds wrote the kernel - he didn't write everything in the GNU/Linux distributions!  And that's with software where it's faster to collaborate, test, iterate remotely.  You just hit compile - you don't have to compile with a welder, angle grinder, & torch table"
 * Super-clear documentation. The design isn't just what's in your heads, or the objects you produce at FactorEFarm. It's what others are able to reproduce - that's the point of the "open source" bit.  And it's the way to gain momentum out there.
 * Continuous tuning of the material on the web. Marcin's got such an interconnected, detailed vision in his head, and it can't spill out fast enough.  I can see exactly how it fits together, but it could be daunting to people who are new to it, and who might "get" it if the material was structured even more.  I'll try to get involved here as a WikiGardener
 * Finding project leaders. Target all of the people who have the right skills, and the time/inclination.  Students and baby boomer retirees: industrial design, engineering, machinists, etc.  They have time, the inclination, and aren't yet wage/mortgage slaves like middle aged family people (like me)
 * Collaboration infrastructure. A clear "here's how to host the project you're leading" package for new project leaders: here's your discussion board, your documentation space, your email group, please use these design tools if you can, etc.
 * Some financial backers! America seems to me full of big-ideas people who fund things they love, even if it's not a "going concern".  People fund Wikipedia and PBS.  Mark Shuttleworth launched Ubuntu partly as a business, but mostly because he believes it.
 * Legal advice! In 5 years GVCS might threaten some manufacturing companies, who might then try to shut things down with patents/intellectual property cases.