other language translations of this page
Current version: 0.3.9
released 20140615
gumnut
cooperative decentralised decision making
About
A Free Software program to find the most supported proposals in large groups of people
Available for free use to any people or groups looking to organise cooperatively.
Screenshot
gumnut GUI and text interfaces
Getting Started
The fastest way to take a test run without installing anything is to download and burn the text interface bootable CD image (121MB)
Then power on the PC with the CD loaded, at the gumnut> prompt, type 'net' to connect online, 'lan' to connect to any others on the local network and then type 'help' for a list of available commands.
There is also a GUI interface bootable CD image (601MB)
Downloads
gumnut-0.3.9.tar.gz Source tar gzip
gumnut_0.3.9_i386.deb i386 .deb
gumnut_0.3.9_armel.deb ARM .deb
Source tarballs and unofficial .debs download page
bootable CD images download page
Pictures
Diagram loop showing 3 people proposing and supporting ideas
Screenshots ( GUI and text interface )
Technical Details
A text based interface provides the ability to create, reply, moderate ( agree with ) and display existing ideas over a decentralised communication network ( Gnutella ).
Each proposal is a regular text file, identified by a simple naming convention that describes field attributes in the filename. Moderation weightings can be seen by searching on one or more of these fields and retrieving the individual proposals which are distributed across the network.
Moderation is done by saving a local copy of each supported proposal. This aims to allow contribution of any idea, by anyone, at any time, while maintaining visibility of the commonly agreed upon ideas.
The network has a decentralised topography where each proposal is a text file on the node where it was created or on another node that has mirrored it. gumnut is a small feature extension of the source code from the GPL Gnutella servent named Gnut.
Gnut provides the underlying network search and download features, which are then expanded upon with the addition of the ability to create a new proposal, support an existing proposal or display a list of proposals matching search terms.
Mirroring is the method used to indicate support for a particular proposal. This increases the number of instances on the network and gives the proposal a higher moderation weighting when subsequently searched for.
Each text file proposal follows a simple filename convention so that it can be searched for by its time of creation, geographical area of relevance and subject topics.
An example proposal file name ( a leaf ):
LEAF_tS20120311174426_pLearth_cCau_pC6000_tO1gumnutdev_tO2release-version-0.3.8.txt
Where the _xX character sequences indicate the following fields:
_tS timestamp | _pL planet | _cC country code | _pC postcode
_tO1 topic1 | _tO2 topic2 | _tO3 topic3
This example leaf describes a proposal started in the year 2012 on March the 11th at 17:44.26PM. Its area of relevance/influence is planet Earth, Australia in postcode 6000. Within the gumnut development community it is a discussion about when to release the next version.
Examples and Demonstrations
Very simple example usage picture
A Usage Tutorial
Development Status
- successful testing of the decision making mechanism.
- successful installation on GNU/Linux and MacOS/X.
How to help
In any way, from coding, patches, bug reports, testing
and documentation helps progress development to a usable
level for the most amount of people.
Development Goals
- add a relevant time field to indicate the time or span that an idea is relevant to.
- allow the fields in filenames to be ordered in any way.
- further testing in larger groups and over the Internet.
- setting up a host cache to allow easier location of the network.
- documentation and this webpage upkeep.
- telling people who are interested in cooperative communication about this site.
- replace the community, topic and tree depth fields with cascading user defined topic fields. ( done )
- create a gui ( a lightweight http interface ) ( done )
New release email notification
To be notified of newly released versions via the anonymous
freecode.com email feature. ( click on 'subscribe' with a freecode.com account or signup for account first )
Files and Installation
gumnut is Free Software released under the GNU General Public Licence.
It runs on GNU/Linux and possibly other POSIX compliant Operating
Systems. Current distribution is a source tarball which compiles with
"./configure" and "make" or an unofficial Debian .deb package
Download source tarball or unofficial .debs
To install the latest version on an apt enabled distribution: download gumnut_{version}_i386.deb and as root use:
# dpkg -i gumnut_{version}_i386.deb
or add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://gumnut.sourceforge.net/debian/ stable main
and these commands will download and install the latest version
apt-get update ; apt-get install gumnut
Links
Freecode Project Page | Sourceforge Project Page
Contact
For development/feedback related emails: contact@gumnut.org
Clarification
A full explanation of terms and abbreviations used on this page may be found on Wikipedia
The text of this page is placed in the public domain.
Thanks to SourceForge.net for hosting this project.
