The Cyclos project started in February 2003 and currently there are
seven developers working full time on the software. The objective of
the project is to develop open source community currency software that
is easy to use and maintain, flexible, secure, and highly customizable.
When the project was started we were aware that various software
products already exist and a lot of work has been done in this field.
Still, the number of community currency systems is growing strongly and
many communities and organizations decide to develop their own software
because the existing software does not respond enough to their needs.
We thought (and still think) that it could save much time if
programmers and other people involved in community currency software
would bundle their efforts to develop standard software. Instead of
having to invent the same solutions, more time could be spend in
improving and extending the software.
Because communities and
organizations have mostly different approaches and ideas about how
community currency systems should work, we did not implement any fixed
methodology in the design. The whole Cyclos structure is dynamic,
including the accounting system, member groups, profiles, loans and
loan groups, taxes, and fees. This means that it is possible to 'build'
a monetary system from scratch. For organizations/communities that want
a basic system we provide Cyclos with a default database and standard
configurations that can be easily enhanced. Currently Cyclos is used
for mutual credit systems like LETS, Barter systems, administration of
Micro credits, Time banks, and backed currency systems.
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