[p2p-research] (almost) Gone to Croatan

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends,

I usually try to separate my public work from my private situation, but I
guess I want to share the following.

I have pretty much reached the end of the road concerning my engagement with
the P2P Foundation. Barring a miracle, in six months or so, I will have to
stop with what I'm doing.

I think most of you are familiar with the key issue, there is no sustainable
business model, and no patronage has materialized in time. At this stage,
the only thing which worked, personal fundraising through Payal, has been
rendered impossible through administrative regulations from the Paypal
office in Belgium, which I seem unable to solve.

My options seem quite limited. One direction I'm pursuing is a paid PhD,
which would have the advantage that I can finalize my research. If that
doesn't materialize, I will have to look for an entirely different job. I've
put out a few feelers on that, let's see if any proposals come my way. The
other job options for a 52 year old male which has been 'out of the system'
for too long seem quite limited, so I'll probably be looking to a barely
paid job teaching English or something of that order. In case one, the paid
phd, I will still be able to do p2p related work; in case of the second
option, I will just stop.

Looking back at my 3 years online strategy, some things went well, but a lot
of things did not go as planned or hoped for. The wiki is not working as a
community tool at all, it is used passively, but nobody is contributing
apart from some exceptions (the sections by Mauro and Valentin come to
mind). No maintainers, hardly any occasional contributors. The various
mailing lists, are hardly active but for my own output. It is only the ad
hoc requests that seem to generate more intense interaction.

The blog is a similar story. Apart from James for the technical site, and
Sam Rose who has always responded to requests, there is very little outside
collaboration. The French blog is dead, the dutch blog barely active. Sorry
for those who have helped on various occasions, and I am not mentioning or
forgetting to mention now.

The lecture circuit has responded somewhat, but it requires a lot of energy
on my part, and I'm exhausted and in a way demoralized, so I feel unable to
push any further. At this stage, small administrative tasks, appear as
daunting mountains to me.

In the near term, I will still continue my regular routine of content
creation, and I have interesting trips coming up to Ecuador, Venezuela, and
probably Harvard in the fall.

Overall, though I feel that I have created something of value myself, it is
clearly not any kind of value that people feel is worth supporting in a
concrete financial way.

However, I'm of course happy with the kind of community that has emerged,
and in some subtle way, I think the work of the P2P Foundation may have
functioned as an accelerator of some things that were already happening, but
not necessarily interconnected as they are now. I hope some of it will
survive my eventual disappearance from the project, if only as an archive.
Thanks to all who have responded so willingly to information and knowledge
sharing requests.

I  still want to finish and create some new areas in the wiki as I feel that
peer governance and peer property are buried in the material about general
governance and IP. Perhaps I'll create an extra separate area on the
Commons, and one on Open Manufacturing. That then, will be it. I feel that
in that way at least I have left behind some legacy of what I believed in,
that may be useful to others.

Miracle-wise, I have research project in the works, which may or not yield a
research income in 2009, and my current visitor here in Chiang Mai promised
to look for a patron.

However, I'm not in any way hopeful, I guess in some way I have become
exhausted and even depressed, so seeing light at the end of the tunnel is
too much to ask.

Miracle-wise, I need about EUR 10,000 before the end of the year. If you
know of any sugar daddy's, now is the time to come forward.

It seems that the Oekonux conference will be a good moment for me to close
off this last seven years. After that, after some period of healing from the
wounds of defeat, I hope some new kind of human adventure will await.

Even if defeated, I feel it was certainly worthwhile pursuing my dream and
inner vision, even though it would seem like a mad pursuit in hindsight.

At home, though my wife is distraught about my inability to pay for the
school fees of the children, she has been remarkably supportive, even though
it does seem very unlikely that Thailand is a good place for me, so I may
have to leave my family to find a job abroad.

A warning for all those who may be tempted to follow their bliss and
intention, in the new age hope that the universe will respond: it does not
always work that way. If you have a fixed income, do count your blessings.

Thanks for allowing to share this,

(of course, as any message, this is also a message in a bottle, just in case
that anybody is willing to actually try to find a solution)



Michel Bauwens


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The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
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