Free Software cooperatives: the GCoop case

GCoop is an argentine Free Software cooperative, one of the few in the world. A few days ago they celebrated their 4th year of existence. GCoop experience is a real valuable one, a practical and existing example that is possible to build a sustainable business based on shared knowledge and peer production. Pablo Vannini, a GCoop’s member, shared the organisation ideas and vision in the following interview:

1) During the past 4 years, what had been the most important lessons you learned from your experience?
Its difficult to know which are the more important lessons, maybe the most important is that we learned that it’s possible to do the things in a different way, I mean: is possible to set a cooperative enterprise that develops software with a real participation of all the members, where we not only create projects for clients but also grow and learn sharing our productions and knowledges.

2) In your opinion, what are the main relations between the Free Software philosophy and the Social Economy proposals?
There are many relations that we can stablish, but mainly we can define two main ideas: the importance of share and cooperate as foundamentals aspects of the relations. In both “man” and “work” concepts, the human activity are key issues. (More about this in “Software Social, Argentina Copyleft, Ediciones Via Libre”).

3) What would you suggest or recommend to other Free Software activists that want to approach to the Social Economy ideas?
We dont think we have the authority to enlight or define any path, but we can say to every person interested in changing the world that is a possible to think the labour and work in a different way; and is possible to put all our efforts, inteligence and creativity to reach a common objective.

4) Do you think its possible that Free Software cooperatives expand their presence in the software market? What is needed to achieve that?
Yes, its possible and necessary. We see that already exists a lot of work offers and there is a lot of people interested in changing the way we think and do the labour. We believe that is necessary the existence of more Free Software cooperatives. We encourage the cooperative spirit participating in conferences and sharing our experience, but much more than that is needed in the education field: i.e. universities should teach that there other alternatives than going into a traditional enterprise where you can only be the boss or the employee.

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.