Complementary Currencies
Community, or Complementary currency systems such as LETS and Timebanks provide an alternative to using official money controlled by governments and banks. Such currencies
* are resilient against recesssion and collapse
* tend to support localisation and sharing rather than unsustainable growth
* prefer local goods and services over the globalised production
* can be used used for economic and social development
This is an all-embracing and flexible package which goes the extra mile for you. The main module is transactions, which provides a payment form and a transaction contentType and exposure to views. There are many views, blocks, actions, etc ready to use. Then there are supporting modules such as the offers/wants directory (a simple classified ads module), a contentType for acknowledging community participation (comparable to Kudos) import tools, and more. It is reccommended to use this module with autocategorise and uid_login modules.
Hosted service
We have formed a non-profit organisation, Community Forge specialising in bringing this software to the commnunities who need it. It offers a full Drupal installation, hosting, customisation and development.
There is some overlap between this project and userpoints but marketplace is much more specific in its intent. This is not a shop, cart, or ecommerce system. It is aimed primarily at classical LETS schemes, but by tweaking a very few parameters, I believe it can be used for similar currency mechanisms such as timebanks. This module is under active development.
This is the only open source social networking tool of it's kind. Cyclos is much more powerful as an accounting package but requires java, and is not so modular. GETS is a business to business network with a high barrier for entry for local communities. CES is a membership based scheme which means communities sacrifice a certain level of autonomy for use of the software.
Roadmap
Version 1.1
Multiple currencies (to support open money)
decouple system accounts from member accounts
implement database API
Future
An API so that other websites can use marketplace as their banking back end.
Better tax & demurrage mechanisms
stats module with more blocks and a full stats page.
SMS interface
Upgrade to RC1
Delete and replace the previous marketplace folder.
Re-enable those modules.
Run update.php.
Delete the views without the 'cc' prefix and rebuild from the new ones provided
Reconfigure add offer/want block and cc_directory_categories block
Releases
| Official releases | Date | Size | Links | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.x-1.0-beta1 | 2009-Jan-31 | 57.25 KB | Download · Release notes | Recommended for 6.x |  |
| Development snapshots | Date | Size | Links | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.x-1.x-dev | 2009-Jul-03 | 117.11 KB | Download · Release notes | Development snapshot |  |
