Networks will be built, and new communities connected but… To what?
In general, to the current internet services … Mostly globalized, centralized, consumerist, extractivist.
Another approach calls for non-globalized, decentralized, ecological, nurturing services to be around, and people/organizations to have them running.
Local services are such services, running in our networks to the service of our local communities.
Do you run such services?
how do they look like?
are they active, or have they been in the past?
are they serving your communities?
what have you learnt?
Also:
what services are you running?
screenshots
who is running it?
I would like to invite one more person to talk about his… Maybe @Eric can tell us about his experience, and he can invite some else
In this way, we will have plenty of examples that could guide us through this conversation.
BTW We have talked about similar things in the past, @kira.allmann was looking about stories of local content… that although it is not the same, it is really connectd to this!
I started to run my own services last year and it has been a great experience. But I’m not in a CN right now…
One great idea that came up when building the Fumaça network was from the manager of the community milk tank. He wanted the milk producers to be able to check online how much milk they had delivered and how much money they’d make every month. I was never able to develop it, but I think it is a nice example of how unique the applications are. Not everybody needs a video server…
In the community network of Jxa’h Wejxia Casil (Jxa´h Wejxia Casil - Redes Comunitarias) in Cauca, a Wiki on the knowledge and history of the indigenous Nasa people is being developed in DocuWiki. It is beginning to be written in Spanish but the idea is that it will also be in the native language which is the Nasa Yuwe. The Docuwiki is installed within a Yunohost with other platforms, so that people who are connected within the network can access them, especially children and young people without the need to be connected to the Internet.
Also, last week a test was done with Mumble, Rasperry pi and Libre Routers so that the local communications of the authorities could be extended through loudspeakers to different points and not only to the center of town. It is expected that in the following days the installation and more tests can be done.
Thanks for starting this important thread, @nicopace!
Very glad to share our current work on this. In addition to the other folks in this thread, it might make sense to invite someone from guifi.net, FFDN, and/or another network/group that has been operating services for some time.
This netCommons report (now already 5 years old) briefly describes the services some networks are/were deploying. (See Sections: 3.1.4, 3.4.4, 3.5.4).
Hi, I agree with the general idea of create distributed services. My main concern is that people participing of that need to put some resourses. For example, take the case of a decentralized backup, and considering at least 2 copies of the information, every one interested on participate needs to have 3 times more space into her/his local disc. How to manage this conception? We need to make people think about it, knowing also the risk of giving her/his data to the concentrated services (which are not really aware). To do so, we need to make some great communication effort.
Maybe as a follow-up on this conversation, I wanted to bring up some of the developments that have been done from people participating in the forum.
Lucky us, @Eric has already shared about Lokal from Wakoma, that uses local servers (I believe small intel-based headless computers and Raspberry pi) to run a bunch of services within the communities he supports.
Also, from Janastu (@tbdinesh, @shalini and the rest of the team) have developed ASPi (Aamne Samne Pi) that is an end user device for webinars, but also packs a stack of services for the phones around (as far as I know). They are also experimenting with local services, although I will let them speak for themselves.
The folks from BOSCO Uganda (@Daniel and @sokotnono amongst others) have been providing local services for years, so they might know a thing or two of what is running a service.
Tunapanda has been providing services for the local community organizations also, as a way to anchor the CN into the community they serve. Maybe @Alphonce, @Risper or @josephine.miliza can tell us more about this.
@luandro from Moinho Mesh has been running https://moinho.app/ … and I believe it is being used by the community.
Also @hiure has been digging into it through repurpusing old laptops into a learning platform with Kolibri… CYD Malawi might have some experience with kolibri (@jamesgondwe and @Doreen )
