In the last couple weeks we had an ongoing debate because of the name of the presentation/text-series/method. The last status was “pattern-based Commoning”.
After a short mail exchange with Silke Helfrich and some hours of rethinking this, I came to the resultut, that this is the wrong direction. “Pattern-based Commoning” implies, that what we are doing is a special form of commoning and to be honest this kind of thinking began with the “Ausdehnungsdrang moderner Commons”. But I don’t think anymore, this is a special form of commoning; what we are doing is supporting commoning in a special form. And we are doing this, with a special tool - a special framework.
So I began rethinking the name from the very first term “zentrale Instanz zur Selbstorganisation und Zwecksetzung der Mittel” / “central instance for self-organisation and determination of the usage of means” (meanwhile central ist changed with commons in the new text-version). But this old term didn’t really fit anymore. So I came to this:
A pattern-based framework to support the organisation of commons towards increasing the conditions of freedom
The part with “freedom” really comes out of nowhere, but I think it is really important. Just “organisation of commons” means nothing - it could be organised for anything. What is the direction? The fulfilment of needs. The needs of whom? Of as many people as possible on the highest degree possible. How are the needs fulfilled? By a) lowering the dependency of money or personal connections with b) making more means available for more people to use or discuss their usage. And lowering these dependency of money/personal connections means I am more free to do, what is important for me. And the software gives you these opportunities to involve in processes which are important to you and these processes help you and others to decrease the dependence of money/personal connections / making more means available for more people or rather discuss their usage - in other words: increasing the conditions of freedom.
I really think this phrase describes pretty good, what we are doing. But it is a horrible title. So what is the title of the text-series / the presentation / the method? It feels ridiculous right now to just invent a word. What feels best is: The Global Commoning System. But then, the method and the project melt together. Then the GCS doesn’t develop the method (“Das Global Commoning System ist das erste Projekt zur Umsetzung des ununterbrochenen Commonings”), then the GCS is the method. … And the GCS-Project develops it.
I am fine with it, but I’m not sure if it is cool with our hope, that someday other development teams somewhere else trying to do the same as we are doing right now, but better. But maybe the name is not the problem. But maybe it is. I really don’t know.
Do you have thoughts on any of this?