CleBer is an Alabama-based open source tractor manufacturing firm that is building and selling internationally a $12,500 open source tractor (except for its proprietary powertrain). The tractors are much cheaper than conventional John Deere tractors and are modifiable, locally sourceable, and improveable by anyone. This innovation is especially useful to small-scale and family farmers and to farmers in the global South.
Adam Brown, University of Missouri: “I grew up on a farm and we always were modifying our equipment. As an engineering student, the ease of adding modifications to the Oggún Tractor is of considerable significance to me. Modern equipment usually is made of plastic and fiberglass, and it has electrical components that get in the way of making modifications. For me, the main thing about this tractor is that it will be easy to modify.”
# Legal Status and Location?
CleBer is a limited liability for-profit business based in Painted Rock, Alabama, USA, Americas & transnational
# When did it start?
CleBer began manufacturing its Uggun tractor html in late 2016. The company was cofounded by former IBM executive Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal, a Cuban-American interested in helping Cuban agriculture.
# How do they work?
add a short description about the project's work, strategies, practices etc.
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# Finances and Partnerships
# Which Dimensions of Commoning are enacted?
As a business-driven enterprise, CleBer hopes to develop an open source community of farmers and tinkerers around their Oggun tractor. However, the tractor has been sold for less than a year so this remains more of a hope than a reality.
The apparent goal is to cultivate shared purpose and values, and to leverage the Situated Knowing of individual farmers who buy the tractor. It is unclear how much mutual commitment will arise within this envisioned network of farmers, or if it will remain more of an impersonal quasi-marketplace.
However, the Oggún will likely reap the benefits of open source design, development and manufacturing. Innovation will move faster than proprietary alternatives and be able to use less expensive, off-the-shelf parts from auto parts and agriculture equipment stores. The tractor is therefore cheaper to buy and to operate than most commercial alternatives.
# How does Provisioning through commons occur?
Because most of the tractor is open source and relatively inexpensive, a commons of co-production and sharing of individual tractor components could arise. But that remains speculative for now (2017).
There are definite opportunities to Cap & Share or Mutualize, Produce Cosmo-Locally, and Use Convivial Tools, as well as to Rely on Distributed Structures. As a LLC company with stated social goals, CleBer could assist in farmers' desire to Protect & Extend Value Sovereignty and to Direct Capital to Commons Provisioning. It remains too early to know this, however.
# 2.a Use Convivial Tools
The Oggun Tractor could be the focus on Knowledge Creation.
# Peer-Governance in the Commons
Since, for now, the community based on the Oggun tractor is more notional than real, and moreover, based on the fortunes of a for-profit company, the farmers may or may not develop shared purpose & values or consent to decisions made about the tractor's future design and distribution. However, it seems like that farmers will Share Knowledge Often and Widely. And the open source design will help in sharing knowledge openly and widely.
# Inner Kernel
- Relational categories: name them - Epistemology: - Rationality: coin it according to the preestablished list of rationality-types
# Realms of Commoning
# Sources
Oggun website
Wendy Reeves, "Creating the Perfect Tractor for Cuba," Business Alabama, November 2015. html "Thinking small: Tractor designed with Allis-Chalmers ‘G’ and truck farmers in mind hits the road for Midwest tour" html "Check out an open-source tractor today," html "The Oggun – it’s more than a tractor, it’s a different way of thinking." html "It’s called the Oggun (Oh-goon), and it’s a different take on the farm tractor than many folks in agriculture may be used to." html "Tractor is low-cost alternative to heavy farm equipment." html
# See also: Convivial Tools, Open Source Hardware Projects, User Innovation