Thank you all who responded to my last e-mail.
It's wonderful to have such a responsive group of
forward thinking people to work with. :)
My last post was made prematurely with less thought
than what was required. I won't have my "act"
together for another month or two... but when I
do you I will make another post to this list.
So as to not leave you hanging, my project is
really two distinct things that are interwoven:
a) A new software ownership model. I call it
"communitysoftware". It is a balance between
free software and proprietary software where
the open source, non monopolistic aspects are
available, while maintaining the ability to
be paid for ones work by charging for
commercial use.
b) A new bookkeeping model. Bookkeeping records the
financial "story" of a company. Current bookkeeping
systems record this story in first person (from the
company's perspective). This bookkeeping project will
record the story in third person (from the
community's perspective). The resulting business
environment is one where large numbers of independent
contractors can cooperate/compete, while having the
advantages of uniform record keeping. Currently
the bookkeeping overhead of multiple first person
systems prevents groups of independent contractors
from collaborating effectively -- leaving large
contracts for large companies who can leverage
uniform bookkeeping practices across a project.
These two models are interwoven since (a) requires (b).
My business associate, Dan Palanza, is doing a
similar type of business ownership model at the
local community level. It was he who introduced
me the new bookkeeping concepts and opened my
eyes to a different way of doing business.
Thus the new bookkeeping model will be applied
to not only the software world, but in a small
town environment in Falmouth, MA.
Both of these concepts are in their infancy,
and it will be very challenging to bring them
into maturity, hence the only thing that I can
promise is that it will be an interesting
trip for all involved.
Once again, give me at least another month to
write this up and get organized to the point where
I can reach out in a more organized fashion.
In the interim, if you could point me to existing
bookkeeping/accounting models and software, this
would be great.
:) Clark