Collaborations

It seems to me that this project might be a perfect for collaborating with various environmental groups. Was wondering if an interesting model is to allow access of these cards to well reputed groups, who can use it as a fund raising opportunity as well as a way to allow higher quality production card sets.

This, of course, is subject to the opinions of the community, and in particular, the artists creating the images, but it seems like it might be neat if say the David Suzuki Foundation releases the "West Coast" expansion set...

Anyway, this thread might also be interesting generally to start other collaboration conversations.

O.K. so this has been brought up a number of times elsewhere. i.e. can we get high quality cards made, possibly by making the project a non-profit, or through a collaboration with various reputable environmental non-profits. It's also been brought up that this opens up design possibilities (i.e. the cards can look a certain way etc when provided in this manner).

Right now, my lab's take would be as follows:

Firstly, we're not really in the position to oversee the logistics of setting up a non-profit (besides I'd like to keep my lab away from any scenario where any money transactions occur). As well, we're not really comfortable in going this route, because it's not something highlighted to community at large, and possibly, artists and other folk who have participated wouldn't really dig the idea. This is something we can find out more about?

Collaborating with other non-profits may be something that is potentially interesting. Again, I'm of the opinion that we're not close to the stage where such discussions can begin, but I do know that in the second half of 2010, I'll be well placed to look into this consideration (I'll be doing a sabbatical in London's Natural History Museum, which is well placed with a variety of players in the environmental stewardship angle). Again, it would have to be totally clear to all the content generators of what is going on, and that they're fully on board.

I'm not sure what the general take is on folks who advocate open access/open source where the content has the potential to fund raise for good causes. But for now, I'm most comfortable sticking with the notion that it's not necessarily something that everyone would agree to?

Anyway, this is an interesting thread.

davehwng wrote:I'm not sure what the general take is on folks who advocate open access/open source where the content has the potential to fund raise for good causes. But for now, I'm most comfortable sticking with the notion that it's not necessarily something that everyone would agree to?

I think this project ought to be open source, but with the right Creative Commons license it's easy to allow for groups to generate profit.

You could also go with a more conservative license (from the ones listed here) and simply grant waivers to specific groups you want to be able to use it.