Hey Sudoers, what do you all think about the mesh project becoming an Omni member collective? ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Mai Sutton <mai.ishikawa.sutton(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 9:20 PM Subject: [omni-discuss] Omni Member Application — Sudo Mesh To: <consensus(a)omnicommons.org>rg>, <discuss(a)omnicommons.org> Cc: <info(a)peoplesopen.net> Dear Omni Collective Delegates, Below you will find Sudo Mesh's application to become a member collective of the Omni Commons. We welcome your questions and any and all input you may have about our application! I plan to be present at the Omni Delegates meeting tomorrow, April 2, to formally present our application and receive your feedback. Best, Mai --- OMNI MEMBER APPLICATION - SUDO MESH What do you do that makes a difference in the world? Sudo Mesh develops software and assembles hardware systems to build open community networks. We are building open technology that helps connect our neighbors, support local businesses, and enable community collaboration and cultural production. In the event of a natural disaster or state censorship, community mesh networks can be a resilient means of communication and sharing of information. Our projects include People's Open Network, a community-owned and -operated non-profit digital network in Oakland and disaster.radio, an off-grid, solar-powered, long-range mesh network built on free, open source software and affordable, open hardware. Briefly recap your history as an organization. Meetings to build the People’s Open Network began in January of 2013 at Sudo Room. Several founding members of the project, including Marc Juul, Jenny Ryan, Daniel Arauz, Lesley Bell, Jehan Tremback, Jake Sternberg, and Matthew Senate, continue to be involved to this day. We have continued to build off of the contributions and experiments of people who have been involved over the years. Our accomplishments over the last seven years include: Development of our own version of mesh routing firmware, SudoWRT, which was built off of existing open source operating system OpenWRT in addition to open source mesh routing protocol Babel. Organized six Build Your Own Internet (BYOI) events where we’ve hosted hands-on activities and presentations about how the internet works and our digital network commons initiatives. Installed 30+ antennas and routers in homes and businesses to become wireless nodes in People’s Open Network. One includes a node at the Internet Archive building in Richmond, CA, which we placed there in order to distribute gigabits of donated, free bandwidth. Raised over $180,000 in grants and individual donations to support our work, including a $30,000 donation to Omni Commons and a $10,000 donation to Sudo Room (where we have hosted our meetings and storage for years). Laptops for All (another Sudo Mesh project) has given out dozens of laptops to high-need individuals. Our most active projects are the People's Open Network and Disaster Radio. People’s Open Network empowers communities to build and operate their own wireless networks without relying on last-mile ISPs. Using our design built on open source software, off-the-shelf hardware, and open educational materials, small groups of people can utilize existing bandwidth to share their internet connections and cover public and underserved areas. Those who connect to the network are not customers, but community members, encouraged to learn, participate, host a node or contribute to code. Disaster Radio is an off-grid, solar-powered, long-range mesh network built on free, open source software and affordable, open hardware. It is being designed to be rapidly implemented in disaster areas by anyone who can follow written instructions, acquire the necessary components, and mount a nominal number of nodes. The nodes will be small, entirely self-contained units running low-bandwidth web apps that anyone can access with a WiFi-enabled device. We are designing them to be solar-powered. What is your incorporation status? (501c3? Unincorporated Association? etc.) We are an incorporated 501c3 organization as Sudo Mesh, with EIN 46-4226376. We have our own bank account with UNIFY Credit Union, including sub-accounts for each of our projects. How do you make decisions? We are currently undergoing a transition in our decision-making process, which has been slowly evolving over the last two years. Until 2018, major decisions were made by in-person votes at weekly Tuesday night meetings by those actively involved in Sudo Mesh projects. Otherwise, decisions were made on an ad hoc, individual basis by those who had the capacity to work on different aspects of a project. For the last two years, we have been experimenting with the decision-making platform, Loomio. We collectively selected active members as “Stewards” who are empowered to vote on any major decisions, particularly those involving financial expenditures. We are also using Loomio to discuss ideas and proposals before they go up for a vote. Currently, proposals must be approved by consensus of approved Stewards. Stewards are not able to block if they are the sole person opposed to the decision — they must work with the proposer to come to a proposal that works for them. This has largely worked for us, but we still lack many protocols that could ensure a stable governance process. For example, we do not have minimum involvement requirements for those to remain as Stewards. We hope to address such issues in the coming months. State your goals for becoming an Omni member collective. How would your presence in the Omni contribute to its purpose and Statement of Solidarity? We believe in the power and potential of the commons as an alternative to capitalism, which justifies the extractive, violent, and depraved treatment of humans, animals, and the Earth. Networked communication has not only become critical for people to access and share information, it’s a necessity for community connection, social justice organizing, and to inspire and disseminate stories and art. Sudo Mesh is a small project out of many thousands of digital commons organizations that are fighting for a more just and equitable internet. Our goal is to build network infrastructure that is truly owned by and for the public, with a more specific aim to create technology that addresses the information and communication needs of Bay Area neighborhoods. Sudo Mesh has also long been a pillar organization of Omni Commons. Several of its members have and continue to contribute their time and expertise to maintain the wireless network in the space. Our members have helped with building maintenance and we have also used the space for our BYOI events. Our donation of $30,000 to the Omni Commons in 2018 is also a testament to our commitment to support Omni as a critical community resource in Oakland. Explain how you will finance your Omni membership dues/rent. We currently have some savings that would allow us to pay our membership dues for the near future. However, we will continue to apply for grants, seek individual donations and other recurring sources of funding to fund our work and all our expenses, including our rent and Omni membership dues. Describe what dedicated physical space (if any) you need. What will you do in the dedicated space? What can you do in shared space? Will you need to make any modifications of the building? Include floor plans if that makes your proposal clearer. We already use some space in Sudo Room: a walk-in storage space in the southeast corner mezzanine. We have considered using more space at the Omni as a regular workspace, but we currently do not have plans to expand our use beyond that space. _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss(a)lists.omnicommons.org https://omnicommons.org/lists/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ sudo-discuss mailing list sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org https://sudoroom.org/lists/listinfo/sudo-discuss