Mission statementTo create, as a community, a web site that will let people report their contribution into the worldwide effort of cleaning up the environment.
Motivation for the projecthttp://cleantogether.com : This web site lets people post their environmental cleanup experiences. Whether you
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go to a beach, to a picnic, or on a hiking trip, think about how to bring some trash back home from the outdoors -- not only "what you bring to nature, take back home" kind of things, but think about the other stuff that gets left behind by others. You don't have to make your outdoor trip purpose to clean up (unless you want to) -- go have some fun, and at the end of the day contribute as much as you can (every bit counts). As you carry trash out, take a picture of your bag full of trash on- site (or it could be a picture of some really interesting finding that does not naturally belong to the environment), and post a blog story to the web site. Don't forget to tell where you found it and how much it weighs. Over time, some interesting statistics will accumulate, and the world will see our cleanup progress.
The project is built with Ruby on Rails version 2.0.1 . Some of the cool technologies the Cleantogether project uses are: Google Maps integrated with Rails Ajax, server-side updates, etc...
The code is free to share -- everyone is welcome to look at the code as well as to contribute cool ideas. The site is hosted at http://cleantogether.com
Unique Software Development ModelCleantogether.com is a unique project. How many other web sites do you know that are developed with an open source model? This project is pioneering the concept. Yes, there are thousands of open source projects hosted on Google Code, or sourceforge, or somewhere else. Most of these projects have one thing in common -- they develop a product that can be installed. Whether it's a framework like Struts (yes, good old Struts), or an OS like Linux, they all have a file that can be downloaded and installed on your local computer. Cleantogether.com has no end product that can be downloaded -- the result of collaborative development is a web site.
Motivation for developersSo, why as a developer should you care about contributing your talents and time to this particular project? First of all, this project makes a difference to the world we live in. Everyone can contribute by going out there and cleaning up the environment and reporting on their progress. Developers can use their unique set of skills to make the web site nicer, to add new functionality that makes the web site experience better for the rest of us, or simply to fix a bug. Currently, the web site has very basic design, content and functionality. Some might argue that there is not much to add. Actually, in our view the possibilities are endless. For example we can add features like the DIGG.com style discussions, we can also add all sorts of statistics to the site so everyone can monitor the cleaning progress (and awareness level) around the world. We can also add features like creating cleanup projects where a group of people can get together and compete with each other or even challenge some other groups. And we can even start thinking about charging some fee to companies that want to organize their employees for an environmental cleanup day, in return for publicity (see about this in the next section). Individual contributors will always be able to use this site for free. And the last-but-not-least reason for developers to contribute -- this project is built on some of the coolest technologies out there: Ruby on Rails, Google maps, Ajax, MySQL, etc... So if you are a developer as passionate as we are about web technologies and keeping the world we all live in clean -- please roll up your sleeves and help!
Software as a ServiceFrom the very beginning cleantogether.com is taking a "software as a service" approach. Delegating responsibilities to other services that can do it better, rather then writing everything in house, seems to be the right way to go. We already use two third-party services. One is http://captchator.com , that generates and verifies captcha images to keep spammers away. The other one is a google maps which does not require special introduction (simply one of the best web based mapping solutions). This is great because it does take some load off of our server and allows us to concentrate on our business. The next service we are going to be integrating with is an authentication/authorization solution offered by http://RootLocusInc.com hosted as a service at http://preallowed.com
Potential profitabilityIt is not unusual to make a profit off of open source project. Red Hat is one remarkable example. Also, Google has open-sourced most of its code but still has been able to build a remarkable and wealthy technological empire. Our project has all of it's code open sourced. Right now the site is maintained by a few enthusiasts who really believe in what we do, and who want to make the world a cleaner place. Eventually, in order to be able to keep the site up and running we will need to pay our bills. For now, while the site is very basic in functionality and the traffic is very low, we can afford to fund it ourselves. But we envision that down the road it will change (a good thing), and then we will need to consider some way of generating a cash flow. All the money earned will be invested either in web site support and maintenance, or in other environmental projects. We might even consider making fair rewards to the developers who contributed to the project (at this point it's too early to talk about, but is definitely a possibility).
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