The web browser Firefox, the email client Thunderbird, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, are examples of free and open source tools. The Sarapis Foundation believes that instruments like these are essential to human society because of their ability to provide “everyone with the rights to own, customize and contribute to the technologies we all use everyday” – effectively liberating human collaboration.

Emile Durkheim wrote in The Division of Labour In Society that, “no individual is sufficient unto himself, it is from society that he receives all that is needful, just as it is for society that he labors.” It is reasonable to believe we are born with the intention to help each other, directly or indirectly. As a result, the means for building, and modifying the structures society depends on should be freely obtainable.

In my opinion, the field of law known as Intellectual Property, which grants certain and exclusive rights to owners for intangible assets, such as inventions and designs, is worth analyzing. Morris R. Cohen wrote in Property & Sovereignty that a property right “is a relation not between an owner and a thing, but between the owner and other individuals in reference to things.” One of the fundamental rights given to property owners, is the power to exclude others from possession. This ability can, and has been implemented to create profits, usually at the expense of others (for more on the concept of property, consider Why property). It is for that reason the free, libre, open (FLO) movement is so important.

“Openlocalism” as described by The Sarapis Foundation:

Openlocalism asks people to think openly and act locally because if people solved their own local problems in open way that allowed others to use, modify and improve their solutions, everyone would be able to more easily overcome common challenges – like those for food, shelter, education and access to social spaces. To practice openlocalism, simply start using FLO solutions to meet your own needs. When you encounter a problem without a FLO solution, consider how you can participate in creating one.

What is FLO?

Free/Libre/Open (FLO) technologies give their users the right to own, access, use, modify and contribute their source materials.  The term is most commonly used to refer to software project like Linux or Wikipedia, but the concept can apply to any type of technology, including software code, encyclopedia entries, business plans, scientific procedures and hardware designs.  The accessibility and plasticity of FLO technology allows it to quickly become standardized, enabling individuals and organizations to collaborate on it’s further development and to create deeper, more functional, more personalized products and services for themselves, their clients and their communities.  Currently, FLO technologies are incorporated into almost all the electronic products and services you use everyday, yet these products and services are not FLO because their producers don’t provide you the same rights they were given by the creators of the FLO technologies they use in their products.

The simple fact that FLO technologies are preferable to closed, proprietary ones because they are less expensive, more accessible and facilitate more rapid technology development is rarely brought to the attention of users by the mainsteam media because FLO technologies and the participatory production practices that create them presents not only competition for the media’s advertisers, but an existential threat to the entire corporate structure.  What would happen if everyone started participating in the production of FLO solutions?  What would happen if people had the technologies they needed to produce what they want?

FLO is Abundance

FLO has fundamentally transformed the virtual world by allowing people to share technologies and avoid reinventing the wheel over and over again.  When that same transformation reaches the material world, everyone will, for the first time, be able to overcome material scarcity and embrace abundance. That might sounds crazy at first, but abundance is simply a mindset acheived by having more material wealth than one wants.  Technology makes this possible because it allows us to create so much more wealth than we ever could before.  However, technology can also be used to distort our natural wants into pathologies that make it impossible for us to ever feel like we have enough.  Considering how advanced our technologies are and how difficult is it for most of us to meet basic needs for healthy food, dignified shelter and safe spaces to socialize, it’s worth considering that we might be focusing our technologies in the wrong places.

What is Localism?

Localism values the production and consumption of local energies originating from within oneself and from ones local communities.  This is a distinct departure from the mainstream, industrial perspective that rejects the obvious fact that nature is the source of value and argues instead that value is created in very specific locations like The Federal Reserve, The White House, Hollywood and Harvard. Localism resists this perspective by recognizing the simple fact that artificificial representations of reality aren’t as valuable as authentic manifestations of it.  People instinctually recognize that a participatory life is more exciting, more passionate and more fun than the passive lives promoted on TV, but they’re often intimidated by the challenges posed by their local environments. This intimidation is only possible because they don’t realize the wealth of FLO solution available to them – solutions that can help them to overcome local challenges and take control of their own destiny, reality and world. (source)

For more on The Sarapis Foundation, visit their website.