The Open Food Network is on a mission to build a new food system that is fair, local , and transparent .
“We want to power a world where fair, open food & farming networks (re)connect people and regenerate the earth.”
We believe that it is possible to create a food system with social and ecological health at its core and work closely with stakeholders around the world to make it happen.
Our software platform makes it easy for anyone to set up and manage an online farmers market or store. This software platform is now used by more than 7000 producers in over 20 countries around the world.
This project aims at developing and publishing an open-source Ruby gem for integrating GNU Taler into Ruby-based e-commerce applications, starting with Open Food Network (OFN).
Currently, OFN supports Stripe and PayPal. Adding Taler introduces a low-fee, non-extractive payment option aligned with user values. The gem will be released on rubygems.org and designed for reuse in other Ruby apps such as Spree and Solidus. The project includes testing with pilot users, full documentation, and developer engagement.
Our community thanks the NLnet fundation for its support.
We also thank all those who have worked on the application (carried by CoopCircuits, the French instance of Open Food Network), and those who will develop the solution.
Together we build a fairer food system, and ethical payment methods is a key to help local food producers and suppliers to thrive !
We also have a first demo running for Open Food Network - OFN (still much to do!). The logic is the following: OFN creates an order on the merchant backend to then go the the payment page of that order on the backend. Once paid, OFN can then ask the backend if it was paid and complete the order :
This brings refunds available on the gem. We are now working on refunds with Taler on the Open Food Network (OFN) software. This should enable us to improve the gem if needed.
Alongside of refunds, the first Taler integration is going to be released on OFN software next week. We hope the team at OFN Switzerland will be able to deploy that release on their server the same week. From there we plan to test Taler with a first shop that agreed to test this with us.
Looking forward to test this live and report back here!
And of course, don’t hesitate if you have any questions
and partial refunds will be available for production use in next week’s OFN release.
We are now talking to users in Switzerland and onboarding them to the Taler experience. There are a few hickups, especially at the shopper side of things (understanding how to provision your Taler wallet seems not straightforward). We are in the process of documenting this properly in order to share here and see what ressources need be produced to overcome these challenges.
Thank you @Rachel for this. I will try it. Last month I was at the Geneva Book Fair and with @Ludomire we tested Taler payments in CHF selling books. I’m glad that I can now try to integrate with Discourse thanks to your gem.
I just tested using the demo code, I got the Order URI, and the “few hiccups” you mention. @vlada, @CM_7 can you please have a look and help @rachel with the upcoming documentation? IMO, documentation is not the issue there, but the UX – the issues with the bank withdrawal and the wallet payment have been reported several times. Anyway, thank you @rachel for your upcoming documentation, it will be really useful.
