Kune: a web tool to encourage collaboration, content sharing & free culture

Introduction

Frequently, we see the scope of action of our group/collective/organization on Internet limited by several aspects such as distance, economic means or technical knowledge, which make us heavily dependent on others. What would happen if we were able to overcome these problems ourselves without any technical and economic effort?

Kune, which means together in esperanto, allows the collaborative management of a collective with just an Internet connection.

What would you be able to do with Kune?

You could create an online group space for the creation of collaborative documents, build your group website, holding and planning meetings in real time, interact or share your contents with other users of your group or others in your social network.

What is Kune, then?

• Is it a communication tool? yes, in several ways: chat (compatible with gmail and similar ones) and other more advanced ways to be in touch...
• Is it a social network? yes, although not centralized (as one big library) but distributed (as many interconnected libraries).
• Is it a document real-time creation system like Google Docs? yes
• Is it an advanced new generation email system? yes, showing your ongoing conversations and draft documents in an Inbox.
• Is it an online collaborative space for my collective/group? yes, where you can share/build together.
• Is it a multimedia space? Yes, you can integrate and share videos, photos, maps, twitter...
• Is it free? Yes, fully free/libre open source software, and Creative Commons contents.
• Could it help us to create our website? yes (although this part is currently in development)...
• Is it extensible? Yes, the same way as Firefox is, with many add-ons to do many other things.
• Besides, it protects your privacy and encourages the sharing of knowledge and common goods.

No Dependencies

Nowadays you can make photos pretty easily, right? Even if you are not a professional photographer! Several years ago, we used to depend on photographers to obtain the photos we wanted, developing our films.

Today, thanks to digital cameras, anyone is able to make photos easily without their help. However, can you make websites?

Today you depend on professionals: techies and private companies (Google/Yahoo) to make websites, the same way we used to depend on professional photographers. Why? If you want to be able to make your website and communication spaces for you and your community without these dependencies, use and participate in the creation of Kune and in our workgroup within the Medialab.

Workgroup of Kune in Medialab-Prado

The main aim is to have a workgroup around this project in order to work and improve together this platform. Thus, we are doing a call for collaborators with profiles such as designers (web/graphic/audiovisual), programmers, translators, "communicators" and especially those interested in testing our tools in order to provide us with the necessary feedback, proposing changes in any level, and even helping us implementing those improvements. We want this tool to match the needs of the community of creators and activists, so your contributions are essential to shape the tool for your needs.

We'll organize monthly meetings in the Medialab for the collaborators and those interested. It is not a closed project: any new collaborator can push the project towards different directions, bring new ideas or "evolutions".

Besides, if you are thinking in doing an internship/training, major final project or master/PhD thesis, we can support you with training, co-supervision and/or ideas about what to develop/study.

Kune has the support of the Comunes collective and the IEPALA Foundation, together with other collaborators.

April 24/ 6:30 pm [+info coming soon]