A Cooperative Economy: The Time is Now - Green For All

Why isn't Drupal's banner Community-Owned Software?

Austin is doing far better, financially at least, than Detroit. But when it comes to competition in a cutthroat time of depressed profit and wages, women, immigrants, and people of color are getting the raw end of the deal left and right. Many in the city feel underemployment, under appreciation or both.

In this sense we are primed for an alternative. And the good news is, while any big, social or economic grassroots movement is a "marathon", so to speak, we are witnessing big change over the last couple of years.

PHOTO: Black Star Pub & Brewery

Austin has already birthed more than one worker-owned cooperative business in recent years. Black Star Co-Op Pub & Brewery opened doors in the summer of 2010, with a large banner outside that reads "Community-Owned Beer." A consumer cooperative (owned by the community it serves) and also a worker-coop (run by its employees), Black Star is attracting a full house of business seven days a week.

Agaric, as a collective, tries to model worker-owned co-operatives for the Drupal community. What is even more important for Drupal and Free Software is the concept of community-owned software, the consumer cooperative model.