On an Ecosystem for Community Cloud Services in Guifi.net

Community networks build and operate local IP-based networks. They originated as communication infrastructures developed by citizens that enabled isolated communities to connect to the Internet, in order to be able to participate in the daily usage of Internet services. Community networks showed that network services can be built and maintained in a collective action. This paper looks into the question if the lessons learned in terms of tools and instruments from community network operation can be applied to have cloud-based services offered within community networks. Such local cloud-based services could offer to users and providers new features which differ from those of current cloud service offers in the Internet.