FeF Strategy Statement

Last updated 8.23.09

Introduction

FeF is a complex social experiment for creating a replicable, post-scarcity, resilient community – congruent with the FeF Position Statement. The FeF strategy is determined by number of constraints. One of these constraints is the availability of resources. Under the assumption of limited available resources, a solution must be approached by a focused, prioritized approach consistent with resource constraints and the FeF Position Stetement. This page outlines several points that are considered when making decisions on strategy and prioritization.

Considerations for Strategy and Prioritization

1. Product Release. Product release in general indicates direct earning potential for FeF. To bootstrap itself financially, FeF prioritizes those products nearest product release. Product release allows us to finance further development. Product release also allows us to fund future developments. In particular, the first product release, forthcoming – is a crucial milestone for verifying our 5-10 fold cost reduction predictions for producing economically important hardware via open source methods. Furthermore, the first product release is a crucial step to demonstrating a replicable, open source business model, whose replication is predicted worldwide. This is newsworthy due to its importance in open source, post-scarcity economic development. Moreover, first product release is a solid foundation for an open source, product development pipeline.
2. Collaboration Potential – The essence of an open source development project is its openness to external contribution. FeF will engage in collaborative hardware projects (both hardware and other organizational projects) at any time that it can: (1), Identify significant, available, open source intellectual capital (open design, open expertise, etc.) that can be used in product replication at FeF or off-site; (2), Identify a person that could serve as project leader to implement those projects on-site at FeF via Dedicated Project Visits, or as a remote collaborator; (3), verify that the project is consistent with the GVCS and FeF Position Statement; and (4), proposed project does not divert resources from existing projects. When these four criteria are met, a solid foundation is created for project success, including fungibility via crowd funding or other methods. Non-hardware projects may include topics such as organizational or resource development, education, outreach, collaboration development, project replication, or many others.
3. Living Environment. The bootstrapping FeF approach includes prioritization based on infrastructure needs. The most pressing of these is the living environment, simply because the present year-round population capacity of FeF is only 2 people. The Hexayurt and Solar Cubicles are unsuitable at present for year-round use. Any new projects related to the living environment are currently being considered for Dedicated Project Visits. Remote collaboration on this topic may help in publicizing/organizing collaborators for Dedicated Project Visits on infrastructure. Living infrastructure projects include high prioritization of the CEB press for effective future construction, as well as finishing the existing CEB kitchen structure. Moreover, we are planning on an outdoor stove for hydronic heating, such that the cordwood hut, earthbag structure, and both solar cubicles can be retrofitted for hydronic heating simply by running hot water lines to these structures from a single, central heating stove. The second line of priorities on the living environment includes a second and further tractor prototype for completing the built envronment. The constraint on the available LifeTrac is that the present usage policy for LifeTrac includes Marcin as the only qualified operator, due to the operator skill requirements. Thus, a simplified, more safe prototype is a must for scaling heavy equipment operation on-site.
4. Open Source Mechanical Infrastructure. It is well-known that high maintenance cost is a significant constraint in the mechanical infrastructure of communities. For this reason, there is no single modern open source ecology community that can keep up with the cost of maintaining a complete mechanical infrastructure (tractors, cars, sawmill, CEB press, agricultural equipment, well rig, power production, construction equipment, various utility equipment, food processing equipment, industrial equipment). Equipment capitalization requirements prevent many communities from access to effective means of production. Given these points, we claim that less expensive, lifetime-design, open source equipment is a prerequisite for any community interested in post-scarcity levels of production. For this reason, we prioritize development of open source equipment for all FeF productivity needs. Moreover, we are demonstrating the pattern language of equipment flexibility and hypermodularity as a means to annihilate the high costs of equipment ownership.
5. Technological Recursion – See Recursion page for more information. Technological recursion essentially means building parts locally, on-demand, instead of purchasing them from centralized sources. The significance of this is that one can reduce costs, optimize performance, and maximize lifetime design of technology by being able to use components that lend themselves to transparency, easy maintenance, repairability, or replaceability via design-for-disassembly. Technological recursion is the means that we choose for arriving at open source mechanical and other open source infrastructures
6. True Fans Recruiting. At present, we have 40 True Fans, contributing a baseline operating budget. We are currently not spending resources on True Fans recruiting, as this would require a dedicated, well-organized effort. Our present approach is to continue substantive development towards Product Releaes, such that publicity resulting from Product Release creates a new foundation for True Fans recruiting. We are seeking someone to help us with a recruiting campaign.
7. OSE Specifications. These are our specifications for replicability. The main points are simplicity, transparency, lifetime design, localization potential, and high performance of designs considered.
8. Product Selection Metric. This is described in the OSE Proposal.

Summary

These are the main points of strategy selection for FeF. There are others, and these can change any time as progress is made. You can help in developing a post-scarcity community infrastructure.