Open Capitalist

 

The goal of this method is to automatically break up large projects into smaller more manageable pieces that an individual could find reasonable to take on by themselves.  Failing that, the project owner can decide which group they could hire the work out to.  This is essentially a Request For Quote mechanism which allows individuals to bid on portions of the project they are capable and willing to do.  Below is a sample project from Open Source Ecology which wants to create an open source induction furnace for foundry operations.

Open Source Ecology (OSE) would create a Request for Quote for a built, working prototype for a budget of $5000.  Below is an illustration of how this would appear on the website.

Assume an individual sees this and says, “yeah, I can do that for $5000.”  They would bid on the project and it would be represented as follows.

So far this is nothing different from any other RFQ system.  One end goal this is designed to achieve is the segmentation of projects into smaller pieces.  In this example, the tools required to design an induction furnace are far different than the tools required to build a prototype.  Let us say an individual has the tools/skills required to design the hardware but no facilities to build a prototype.  They could then bid on this section of the project and open an RFQ for the build out of the prototype.

Now, an individual with the facilities to build the prototype but maybe lacking the ability to design it, could get involved and bid on the remaining section.  This at the very least has created two options for OSE to achieve the desired goal of a working induction furnace prototype.

This has automatically started the process of breaking down the project into logical and relevant sub projects which are more easily tackled by an individual contributor.  The desired outcome in this case might be that an individual could see the hardware/software section of this project and say, “I love what Open Source Ecology is doing, and since this is an open source design, I am willing to tackle the software/firmware section of the design for free.”  This would leave only the hardware left to complete for the design, which the budget would be allotted to.

The same thing could happen there, an individual contributor could see that and knowing what OSE is using it for, could feel inclined to donate their expertise to completing this small portion of the project to move it forward.

This creates an iteration of the process path that has split the process into manageable pieces, enabaling individual contributors to have smaller, more reasonable commitments.  The project owner can now decide which path is most appropriate.  It is anticipated that this process would generate many parallel paths, not just the paths illustrated here, but duplicate blocks.  For example, there are many different ways to design the digital control mechanisms for this project, there could be many people who volunteer their expertise and there needs to be a way to see which might be the best route to take…

Other Features

If there were a lot of branches and various paths the project could take, how would it be apparent which one is the right option?  This would be accomplished by the same mechanism that appears in many comment sections of existing websites.  The individual’s that are the most reliable contributors would have their bids presented more prominently.  Second, the paths that actually show progress would also be given prominence.  The progress determination would be made by individuals voting on various blocks’ output.  For example, the hardware design might have intermediate goals of schematic capture, layout, BOM and circuit build.  If there are many contributors, the one that gets these milestones met first would be the first branches that are presented visually when the project is viewed.  In a nutshell, it is an up-vote mechanism.

What kind of projects go on the website?  Any kind.  Corporate, private, goofy, it really doesn’t matter.  There would also be a mechanism to give prominence to the projects that are voted as most worthwhile for the open source development model.  If a corporation wants to post a project, and that project is motivated by profit, they might get some bids, but I doubt there would be many individuals willing to donate their time to their cause.  What would be highly desirable is to have a mechanism which allowed corporations to donate expertise to complete existing projects.  In the induction furnace model, maybe there was a fabrication company willing to donate their expertise in building the prototype.  In return there would be a method to reward this company for doing so.  If this corporation later posted a project requesting some design services, individual contributors could see that they gave back to the open source community and thus be willing to help them out in return.  This creates a situation where it is in a companies’ best interest to support open source development.

A method to provide rewards to contributors should also be implemented.  The up/down vote works to a certain extent, but tangible rewards should be offered.  In the above example, if contributors volunteer their time to design the controller section of the induction furnace which had the lowest bid of $2500, then they should have this added to their balance.  This isn't flushed out in it's entirety, but it would be along those lines.  I really can't think of a more reasonable way to put a value on contributors input.

A mechanism to allow interested parties to put money into any section that may benefit them.  These could be comercial enterprises, or other open source projects, it really doesn't matter.  As long as it is open source the integrity of the system remains.  An example of this is a project I am working on for a screen print dryer.  The control circuit is very similar to what I need for the reflow oven for the electronic manufacturing line.  If there was a RFQ for the screen printer, I could put in some funding for the control circuit portion as it can be multi-purpose.