Hi all Normally, in order for someone to join the Journal of Peer Production (JoPP) board, the following has to happen: - A board member sponsors the candidate on this list; - The candidate responds by briefly describing their research interests and how they intend to contribute to the journal; - If a week elapses and no-one has objected, they are included on the board. In the case of Peter Troxler, none of this applies, and he is from this moment officially a board member. There are two main reasons for this extraordinary and dramatic circumvention of customary processes: 1. Peter has been involved in the peer production space for years (see appendix A); he is the president of the International Fab Lab Association; he co-edited with maxigas JoPP#5 on "Shared machine shops"; and he is an active participant on this list. 2. Last week I approached Peter on behalf of the editorial team and asked him if, in addition to normal board duties, he would be able to help us with the CMS/website; he accepted. So, welcome aboard Peter! cheers Mathieu PS. I will post another message about the CMS shortly. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appendix A Whilst searching in my mailbox for "troxler" I came across a message posted by Stefan Merten to the English Oekonux list on 13 October 2010 about the Free Culture Research Conference which had been held at Berlin' Freie Universität a few days earlier. I am reposting the relevant passages below: "One of the most interesting panels titled "New Forms of Production" was right in the beginning of the conference. The utmost interesting talk of Peter Troxler was titled `Commons-based Peer Production of Physical Goods - Is There Room for a Hybrid Innovation Ecology?`_. Peter reported results from three studies about FabLabs [#]_. I don't remember the exact number but so far the number of FabLabs on this planet seems to be still small - in any case much less than 100. FabLabs in this sense are shops where there are these cool machines often called fabbers or 3D-printers which materialize physical goods
From digital designs.
Those FabLabs are publicly funded and though they are made for the general public they are most frequently used by students. When the maintainers of the FabLabs are asked what they provide they replied infrastructure - i.e. the machines -, expertise and the FabLab network. Unfortunately I can't say much about this network but `Peter's paper`_ may contain more information about this. When the maintainers are asked what they provide their service for, there were two types: One type replied that they provide infrastructure for people to produce stuff, the other type replied that they provide infrastructure for people to produce *cool* stuff (aka innovation). When asked what the maintainers take pride in running those FabLabs they replied that they take pride in the effects that using the FabLabs has on users. The pain of the maintainers is the funding. They are running on subsidies with no idea how to continue when the subsidies run out. There is also a tendency in the FabLabs to say "we don't want to be business". Peter also gave a number of examples where designs created in FabLabs were interesting for business. One example was a small walking robot which has been designed and created in a FabLab but was so interesting for a company that they asked for permission to use the design. Another example was about a FabLab in Indonesia where it helped to produce cheap leg prostheses. After the talk there were lots of questions from the audience and later on in a private conversation with again highly interesting answers. One question was about the cost models of these FabLabs. Peter said that there are basically two models. One is similar to a normal business where you need say $1000 per day for energy, wages, amortization, ... The other model is more like "let's have some space where we can *build* our fabbing machines ourselves". Yes, people really build their materializers themselves! The latter approach of course lowers the barriers to have neighborhood FabLabs. Another question about the business model was what about charging the users for using the FabLab. There are various opinions in the FabLab scene. One is that FabLabs *should* be free of charge. Another one is that charging say $20/half day is really ok. Another alternative are companies - i.e. not FabLabs - which sell the production of customer designs. So effectively there is a continuum from totally free of charge to selling some production capability. Another question was about the costs of the raw materials. According to Peter the raw material varies from scrap materials you can obtain without costs to high-priced raw materials for special machines. Another question was about using industrial robots in such FabLabs. Peter told us that at the moment the automotive industry is throwing out the last generation of industrial robots replacing them by newer models. FabLabs may have them for free of buy them for low prices. However, industrial robots are scary machines. In contrast to the 3D-printer type of machines it is well possible that an industrial robot kills a person during operation. As I said this was one of the most interesting talks to me and I'd suggest that you check out `Peter's paper`_ for more details. Though the other talks were also interesting I'll report only briefly about some of them." _Peter's paper: .. _Commons-based Peer Production of Physical Goods - Is There Room for a Hybrid Innovation Ecology?: http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/download/attachments/59080767/Troxler-Paper.pdf?ve... Commons-based Peer-Production of Physical Goods r2 Commons-based Peer-Production of Physical Goods-Is there Room for a Hybrid Innovation Ecology? © 2010 Peter Troxler, CC-BY 3.0 3 Next to these single-aim or single ... Read more...<http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/download/attachments/59080767/Troxler-Paper.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1285065227000> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=