As PDF [1].

Hello,

in collaboration with the P2P Foundation [3], the Oekonux Project [2] is planning its 4th international conference which will take place on 27-29 March 2009 in Manchester (UK).

The Oekonux Project was initiated in 1999. It offers a virtual space where different people with different opinions and different methods for studying the socio-economic and socio-political forms of Free Software and other peer production phenomena. An important question is, whether the principles of peer production may be the foundation of a new economy which may be the base for a new society. Since 1999 lots of discussions have taken place and lots of interesting ideas have emerged. For a very compressed subset of those ideas see the Oekonux introduction [4]. For some current discussions please refer to the Oekonux mailing list [5].

The Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives (P2P Foundation) researches, documents and promotes peer practices in every domain of social life. It's a global cyber-collective and aims to be a knowledge and internetworking platform for open/free, participatory, and commons-oriented initiatives on a global scale.

Under the title

the 4th Oekonux Conference aims to (once more) bring together those who are interested in sharing their studies, in learning about different opinions and in fostering cooperation and collaboration with people who they would otherwise never have met. See the Call for Contributions [6] for the topics we aim to explore. As for the three confernces before all contributions will be documented online.

As virtual communities, neither the P2P Foundation nor the Oekonux Project are wealthy institutions. Thus, for this conference to take place, we need to raise some funds. The funds will be used for covering the following expenses:

• travel reimbursements for invited speakers
• accommodation for invited speakers
• local infrastructure

Please note that we do not pay honorariums for the speakers but only travel and accommodation expenses. All in all we are expecting a need for funds totalling to 20,000-25,000 Euros.

This is the reason why we are approaching you. Maybe you can help us with some money. We are grateful for any amount. Project Oekonux is backed by a registered association (e.V.) in Germany which may be useful for you. The P2P Foundation is a official foundation in the Netherlands (stichting) which may be useful for tax reliefs.

Please see our sponsor program [7] for some of your benefits.