[hackerspaces] Next steps -
Yves Quemener
quemener.yves at free.fr
Mon Apr 15 00:01:23 CEST 2013
This just looks awesome. Thanks for sharing it. A lot of things on your
site seems tied to the US system, which is fine : I think that a federation
can only grow by starting regionally. Can you tell us a bit more how you
choose to accept a space or not in your federation?
Do you help spaces to find donations and grants?
On 14/04/13 22:26, James Carlson wrote:
> I've been following this conversation and appreciate the discussion.
>
> In the U.S., we've formed the Space Federation
> -- http://schoolfactory.org/spacefed -- which is 53 spaces and is growing.
> It's federated, decentralized, and since we do the taxes for everyone, we
> know it is also profitable--i.e., for the 23 spaces for which we act as the
> charity and process funds, in 2012 the ecosystem of spaces created more
> money than it spent.
>
> We're transparent, democratic, and open--not controlled by private
> interests, a public charity.
>
> In other countries, we've been trying to stimulate the start of more spaces
> through efforts like GEMSI (http://gemsi.org <http://gemsi.org/>) and in
> '11, went to CCC to share the story of the Space Federation and learn from
> other spaces what's working, what's not, and share collaboration.
>
> We've been doing this since 2009 (our organization was founded in 2002),
> and what we've learned is:
>
> * It works
> * We can have our autonomy and independence, and collaborate too
> * It doesn't have to be top-down
> * Spaces are financially sustainable
> * Ecosystems of spaces are financially sustainable
> * We can get a lot of financial resources but not come to depend on them:
> in 2012, if we subtract the gifts from foundations and corporations,
> the spaces were /still/ profitable (see finances from 2012
> <http://schoolfactory.org/content/space-federation-2012-financial-results>)
>
> Our goal and aim is to imagine the future in which these spaces are 'the
> schools'--they take the place of what we currently see / think when we say
> 'school' because we're pretty sure the current implementation of 'school'
> needs refactoring. That future is a way off, but it's getting closer and
> closer all the time.
>
> I'd appreciate the chance to collaborate with hackerspaces.org
> <http://hackerspaces.org/> on this. We've got a healthy model in the U.S.
> and even though the laws and taxes are different in each nation, we can
> separate what changes from what stays the same and provide an active
> support to each other.
>
> What can we do to help?
> 1. Host the site?
> 2. Manage it with accountability to the community?
> 3. Assume the costs?
>
> Thank you.
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 3:04 PM, James Carlson <james at schoolfactory.org
> <mailto:james at schoolfactory.org>> wrote:
>
> I've been following this conversation and appreciate the discussion.
>
> In the U.S., we've formed the Space Federation --
> http://schoolfactory.org/spacefed -- which is 53 spaces and is growing.
> It's federated, decentralized, and since we do the taxes for everyone,
> we know it is also profitable--i.e., for the 23 spaces for which we act
> as the charity and process funds, in 2012 the ecosystem of spaces
> created more money than it spent.
>
> We're transparent, democratic, and open--not controlled by private
> interests, a public charity.
>
> In other countries, we've been trying to stimulate the start of more
> spaces through efforts like GEMSI (http://gemsi.org) and in '11, went
> to CCC to share the story of the Space Federation and learn from other
> spaces what's working, what's not, and share collaboration.
>
> We've been doing this since 2009 (our organization was founded in
> 2002), and what we've learned is:
>
> * It works
> * We can have our autonomy and independence, and collaborate too
> * It doesn't have to be top-down
> * Spaces are financially sustainable
> * Ecosystems of spaces are financially sustainable
> * We can get a lot of financial resources but not come to depend on
> them: in 2012, if we subtract the gifts from foundations and
> corporations, the spaces were /still/ profitable (see attached
> finances dashboard)
>
> Our goal and aim is to imagine the future in which these spaces are
> 'the schools'--they take the place of what we currently see / think
> when we say 'school' because we're pretty sure the current
> implementation of 'school' needs refactoring. That future is a way off,
> but it's getting closer and closer all the time.
>
> I'd appreciate the chance to collaborate with hackerspaces.org
> <http://hackerspaces.org> on this. We've got a healthy model in the
> U.S. and even though the laws and taxes are different in each nation,
> we can separate what changes from what stays the same and provide an
> active support to each other.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Yves Quemener <quemener.yves at free.fr
> <mailto:quemener.yves at free.fr>> wrote:
>
> > which involves admitting that none of us
> > knows the perfect answer - and come up with a solution that most
> think
> > will work
>
> I am not sure if this will qualify as 1. or 2. but I still don't
> understand
> the problem you are trying to solve. I think I read all the messages in
> this discussion, and I only identified three things that could be
> solved by
> a central entity :
>
> A. centralization of legal resources (for which countries?)
> B. giving a Goal, an Aim and an Inspiration to the hackerspaces of
> the world.
> C. Give a sens of unity to the movement.
>
> There has been other proposals, but all the other I have seen can
> be or are
> currently solved by independent projects that it makes sense to
> rely on.
>
> More importantly, I see no task that any hackerspace would be
> willing to
> give money for, except maybe the legal help, but then again, the
> EFF may be
> a safer bet if you are in US. IF you are targeting hackerspaces
> outside US,
> are you ready to cover all the legal systems out there?
>
> B. requires a charismatic leader or a strong driver in an awesome
> project.
> This is a pre-requisite, you have to have it first before making a
> foundation or council.
>
> C. is actually doable without funds but has been attempted before.
> It could
> take the shape of a charter (maybe a modular one, a la creative
> commons?),
> that hackerspaces agree or not to follow. Fablabs actually have
> this sort
> of things.
>
>
> On 14/04/13 17:12, Sean Bonner wrote:
> > The way I see it we have two choices at this point.
> >
> > 1. We decide to work together - which involves admitting that
> none of us
> > knows the perfect answer - and come up with a solution that most
> think will
> > work (I'm aware there is no way to ever make everyone happy) and
> try to
> > create a resource that is valuable to people interested in starting
> > hackerspaces as well as valuable to people already involved with
> them.
> >
> > ~or~
> >
> > 2. We continue being snarky and bashing/insulting each other.
> >
> >
> > I'm cool with either option. While I think there's massive
> potential for a
> > shared resource and I point people to the hackerspace patterns
> all the
> > time, my hackerspaces won't live or die based on anything that
> happens on
> > hackerspaces.org <http://hackerspaces.org>
> <http://hackerspaces.org>, one of the benefits of a
> > decentralized system such as this. And I have over 9000 hours of
> trolling
> > experience so I can just sit around laughing in everyones faces
> too. Either
> > way.
> >
> > -s
> >
> >
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