Hi IĀ“m Jan-Peter from Hostsharing eG. A german based Web- and Cloud Hosting cooperative owned both by workers and customers. We are an registered Coop since 2000 and run our own server hardware in two different data centers.
IĀ“m part of the non technical coop members and IĀ“m here because the platform.coop mailinglist recommended coops.tech as nice place to meet other tech coops. Im in the coop area since round about 30 years as member in several different coops. E.g. a coop linking eco-farmers and customers in cities, my ethical bank GLS-Bank e.g. my webhoster hostsharing and my marketplace fairmondo.
I had a voluntary leading position for several years ion a coop and learned a lot about conflicts between voluntary and workers in coops. At hostsharing IĀ“m active on voluntary basis and mainly interested on platform coops and sustainability.
Beside my voluntary coop activities I work as graphic arts IT specialist (colormanagement) and live with my family in Berlin.
Concerning CoTech I have following questions:
What I have to do for hostsharing eG to be listed as an CoTech member ?
any formal membership and membership fees ?
IĀ“m also interested to meet people from other coops, which are running their own server hardware to exchange experiences ans strategies on coop owned hardware and coop owned data centers.
(Owning hardware servers seems to be for several people - even in the coop tech scene - quite old fashionedā¦)
Hi Jan-Peter, good to hear from you, we, Webarchitects, also run our own hardware, but the local data centre we colocate in, Avensys, isnāt a co-op. We are also a multi-stakeholder co-op which includes workers and clients.
Hi Chris, Thanks for your response,
Looking the first time to membership roll of Cotech, I saw fairmondo an thought that the german fairmondo coop is also a member. Now a I realised, that only fairmondo UK is a Cotech member.
A thread with co-op owned hardware would be a good idea.
What IĀ“m also interested in is a discussion, if there are use case, where coops offering hosting and cloud service cooperate on international level. IĀ“m not a techie, but I could imagine, that e.g. a network of co-op servers for e.g. video chats or other traffic intensive applications could make sense. May be we should also add a thread āinternational tech coop networksā ?
I just started a similar topic in the platform.coop mailinglist and one answer was, that I should have a look at the discouse forum from cotechā¦
Could I ask whatās the link on a similar topic in the platform.coop mailinglist? Thanks very much. Iām also interested in this (& also non-techie).
For āvideo chats or other traffic intensive applicationsā would it be better to consider peer-to-peer solutions? For example, I believe one in development called Matrix works like this, similar to how Bittorrent works.
Hi @JanPeter great to have you here https://www.hostsharing.net sounds great - and if the website/ services were also available in English Iād very likely direct customers in your direction too (I already sometimes promote non-co-op Hetzner as a good cheap option for renewable energy powered servers in EU)
Iām Rich, a web developer from the Midlands working mainly with Python and Django. Iām not in a tech co-op but am fascinated by the movement and seeing where it goes.
Hey @richbrennan, lovely to be in touch with you! Iād love to have a chat with you about this, if you want you can grab a slot in my calendar here and we can talk Calendly - John Dunford
Hi Iām John. I like to call myself a philosopher because I graduated with a philosophy degree last year and I think itās funny to make it a vocational course.
Iām the project lead on Wobbly, a chat application for precarious workplace organising. Alongside that, Iām building an understanding of a development methodology for running a radical app. Iām part of ProgCode, a group that matches devs to political tech projects. They have about 300 monthly active members and need more non-coders to facilitate the community. If you know anyone looking to make an impact in politics, they could do worse than join ProgCodeās staff.
In the co-op world, Iām part of a group setting up a software developers co-op in Tyneside, where I live. Weāre in the early stages of working out our legal and organisational structures and business model and are looking to do a pre-launch event in October. Iāll probably be asking a lot of questions on this forum soon about legal structures and finding clients etc.
If any of this is interesting to you and youād like to talk more about it, we can set up a phone or zoom call. Just send me a message!
Iām on the more technical side; programmer and Linux sys admin type stuff, tho Iām interested in many different areas. We use Python at work, but previously Iāve mostly used PHP and a little native Android in Java.
Iāve been involved in many other community groups before, and so I was very keen to work in a co-op when this job came up.
Iāve also been involved in Open Data before. However a lot of my work has more been around what I call Community Data - a bunch of people working together on creating a dataset of shared interest. For instance, I started and still run (6 years now) https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ , listing tech events.
Anyway, Iām based in Edinburgh but in London every few months so maybe see folks around - talk soon!
@SzczepanOfAnimorph my mate Fred Deakin (musician ex Lemon Jelly and Prof of Digital Design at St Martins no less) is doing a music/aug reality event at the Rosemary Branch, Islington, for 13 days starting 13th Nov that you may be interested in -
"Iām writing to tell you about an insanely ambitious new show which Iād love you to come to. Along with my soundtracks, weāve now introduced projection-mapped visuals and VR sensors to Project2ās improvised science-fiction narratives so that Katy and Chris can control their environment through movement. Hereās a couple of stills from our R&D sessions (to be clear, Katy and Chris wonāt be wearing VR headsets during the performances!)
So every night weāll create an all new epic sci-fi movie combining narrative, music and visuals that will never be seen again.
The show is called 13 Cycles (13 nights starting on the 13th of November) and is at the Rosemary Branch Theatre near Essex Road, N1. This three week run is a big stretch for us and if you were able to come down and support us it would be really appreciated. Personally I think the show is mind-blowing and has every chance of crossing over to a wider audience, so come and say you were there at the start!
Hello, Iām Jack, I work at Open Data Services Co-op with @ODSCJames. And Iām also based in Edinburgh. Iām an analyst at ODSC and work mainly on beneficial ownership. I see a few familiar names on this thread, from visits to Space4. I wonāt be at the event at the end of November as Iām on leave but hopefully some of my colleagues will.
Hey Jack, have you said Hello to the other CoTech members based in Edinburgh. Iām not sure theyāre all on here but @chrisb of Graphics Coop is lurking I believe. There are a few other ones up there - Atomised who are not members yet for reasons unknown and Media Coop over in Glasgow
Iām Rory, and I also work for Open Data Services Co-op with @jack and @ODSCJames. Historically based in Bristol, but likely to be based in Tallinn for a while next year.
Iām also an analyst, and generally work towards the production, release, or analysis of open data about international aid and humanitarian assistance, though I dabble in other sectors too (public procurement, social investment, philanthropic grant making).
I will be coming to the hack at the end of this week as somewhat of a newbie to CoTech, though I believe Iāve met a few of you before during my sporadic visits to Space4. I look forward to meeting more of you soon, and to engaging here also.
Amongst other things, Iām interested in learning more about other coops, and skill sharing.
Iām Emma, currently in the middle of founding Equal Care Co-op - a social care platform co-op starting up in the Calder Valley. Our remit is to move the power in social care to the people who give and receive care and support, so we set up as a multi-stakeholder. Weāre currently a consumer of tech services (a very small consumer I should add!) but want to bring people and future members in-house.
