Convene secure, affordable, always-available digital Spaces where anyone can (play || work || grow || be). 🎲 👩💻 🌱 🛋️
- Overview
- Using Convene
- Contributing to Convene
- Operating a Convene neighborhood
- About The Zinc Collective
Convene is an Operating System for Community Owned Digital Infrastructure. Once deployed to a server, Convene is accessed by any web browser.
Convene serves as a community-owned, more ethical alternative to investor-owned online tools like SquareSpace, Etsy, Patreon, Zoom, Yelp, and more.
A Convene Deployment is a Neighborhood. People create Spaces in a Neighborhood, and fill those Spaces with Furniture to meet their collective digital needs. For example:
- A Regional Co-operative network could provide their members with shared payments and video communication infrastructure.
- A Farmer's Market could provide professionally designed websites and social media presences for their vendors.
- A Co-operative Startup Incubator could keep capitalization tables, Patronage Records and other logistical records.
Note: Furniture has been renamed to Gizmo/Gizmos.
You can see more in the Zinc neighborhood.
We have two milestones we are working towards:
- Product Milestone: 1.0 Andromeda
- Engineering Milestone: Cleanup!
Zinc maintains a Convene Neighborhood at https://convene.zinc.coop. For people who want to run their own Neighborhood of Spaces, consider purchasing a Convene Operator License.
Individuals and non-commercial organizations may run their own Convene deployment however they see fit without requiring payment.
However, if the person or organization engages in commerce, defined as taking currency in exchange for goods or services, then the organization must purchase a license to use Convene.
Pricing is determined on a case-by-case basis. Please reach out to
hello@zinc.coop for licensing information.
Organizations and individuals who are comfortable relying on free Community Support are encouraged to start a discussion. Maintainers respond as they are available.
Paid support is available for $135 USD per hour1.
We're always excited for new contributors! Read more in our guide to contributing, located in CONTRIBUTING.md
See our operator documentation.
Convene is maintained by a dedicated community of volunteer Contributors and Maintainers known as the Zinc Collective, a digital product and services cooperative.
We have a Pledge and Code of Conduct. And anyone can become a contributor and/or maintainer.
Our paid support rate is pegged to 3x the San Francisco Living Wage for a couple with a single worker raising three children.
This rate is negotiable for organizations that offer Zinc a patronage account or corresponding equity stake.
Paid support clients may also request a deferred payment program, with terms to be determined on a case-by-case basis.