Solidarity Economy Network

to	senmembers@lists.riseup.net, sen@lists.riseup.net, Marcin Jakubowski  date	Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:54 AM subject	Open Source Ecology, SEN: An Introduction

Reply Dear all: The purpose of this email is to introduce the Solidarity Economy Network and Open Source Ecology to each other.

I joined the SEN, an outgrowth of the U.S. Social Forum, because with its assortment of leading organizations in the alternative economy movement, it is the most promising effort I know of at creating an umbrella organization as a whole and promoting the consolidation of the different alternative economy movements (LETS, cooperatives, credit unions, alternative energy and appropriate technology, open source and p2p) into a single, coherent counter-economy. Their website is here , and their member organizations are listed here .

Open Source Ecology, working in the tradition of Village Earth and E.F. Schumacher, aims to create an open-source toolkit of machinery suitable to a village economy. Their wiki is here , and their blog here <>. Their most developed projects to date are: Compressed Earth Block press ; OS Tractor ; Solar steam turbine generator ; and Sawmill .

In addition, their long list of projects for inclusion in the toolkit includes the multi-machine (a cheap, multiple purpose machine tool that can be used to create duplicates of itself from scrap metal), developed elsewhere .

It seems to me that OS Ecology could benefit from association with the rest of the Solidarity Economy Network, and it would be a wonderful addition to the network from the SEN's standpoint. I just wanted to put y'all in touch with each other.

Best, Kevin