Nine requirements 1 of 9
Water
Out of scope for now, by decision of 6 September 2026. Kept on the map rather than removed, because the reasoning for parking it is worth reading.
Compiled 4 September 2026. The only page of the five with no direction behind it.
Safe potable water for drinking, cooking and sanitation, available as a commons rather than bottled and commodified.
Four of the five requirements written up in this pass carry a position Jakob stated in his own words. Water did not. Rather than fill that gap with something plausible, this page stated the question and stopped.
On 6 September 2026 the answer came back as not now. That is a reasonable place to leave it, and the reason is visible on this page: the mechanism that actually protects water is public ownership and constitutional protection, and no portfolio of tools supplies either. Vienna already has both. A scorer would have almost nothing to score, and building one would be motion rather than progress. If water re-enters scope it will be somewhere without that inheritance, and the question there is political before it is technical.
The framing the project does hold is the one on the matrix: safe potable water as a commons rather than as a bottled product. That is a position about how water should be held, and it is not the same thing as a position about what to build.
Jakob's position, in his own words
No water, not now.
How this page reads that
Until this date water was the one requirement with no direction behind it, and this page said so rather than supplying one. It now has an answer, and the answer is to park it.
Read plainly: not a judgement that water matters less, but a decision about where attention goes. The reasoning is legible from the matrix. Water has almost no consumer-choice story and almost no consumer-reuse story; what protects it is public ownership and constitutional protection. Vienna holds both already. A tool would have very little to act on.
What this parks rather than settles: the same reasoning does not travel. Most places have no Hochquellenwasserleitung and no constitutional protection, and there the question is political before it is technical. If water re-enters scope, it will be somewhere without that inheritance.
The one note that does exist
From the 9EPhR node, under water. These are notes about how a household would actually get water at a chosen location, not a statement about what the project should build.
- Either a well.
- Or a tank, as the fallback for a blackout.
- Or connected to the municipal supply, which would be far easier, and which again depends on location.
Tana uLsfAitFxYvJ, read 4 September 2026.
Which of the four modes apply
Read from the matrix on the nine requirements page, not restated. The wording below is the wording in the grid.
Sharing somebody else made it
A public drinking fountain fed by the municipal supply is the shared form: the tap is common property, free at the point of use, and nobody meters your sip.
Stadt Wien [A]ORF Wien [B]
Ideal consumption somebody else made it
does not apply
The only consumer choice on offer is bottled against tap, and where the tap is safe the bottle loses on every axis at once. Scoring bottled brands against each other would be grading carefully inside a failure mode.
Reuse somebody else made it
does not apply
Greywater and rainwater recovery are real, but they are plumbing built into a structure and decided by whoever owns it. The loop closes inside production, so it sits in the fourth column instead.
Cosmolocal production you make it
Keeping the utility in public hands is itself a production decision. Vienna's city constitution requires a two-thirds council majority before any part of the supply could be sold, and Austria added national constitutional protection for public drinking water in 2019.
Stadt Wien [A]Parlament Österreich [A]
Where the commons already works
Vienna is the reason this requirement is comfortable to leave alone from here, and the reason leaving it alone is not a general position. The city supplies spring water through a municipal utility, runs roughly 1,800 public drinking fountains, and has put two locks on privatisation: a city constitutional requirement for a two thirds council majority before any part of the supply could be sold, and national constitutional protection for public drinking water added in 2019.
That is a working commons, produced by politics rather than by consumer choice, and it is why the matrix leaves the consumption column empty here. Where the tap is safe, the only consumer decision on offer is bottled against tap, and grading bottled brands against each other would be careful work inside a failure mode.
What the requirement looks like outside Vienna
Water is the only one of the nine that the United Nations has recognised as a human right in its own words. The General Assembly did so in July 2010, and the Human Rights Council affirmed shortly afterwards that the right is derived from the existing right to an adequate standard of living rather than created new. That is the framing this project would be starting from if it started.
The scale is not small. One person in four, about 2.1 billion people, still lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024, and 106 million of them drink directly from untreated surface water. That is the actual subject of this requirement, and none of it is a shopping problem.
Inside the EU the recast Drinking Water Directive has been in force since January 2021 and pushes in a recognisably commons direction: member states must improve access with particular attention to vulnerable and marginalised groups, and must promote tap water in public spaces. The Vienna fountains are one instance of a duty that now applies more widely.
What has actually moved water in Europe
A survey of what happened, not a position this project holds. It is recorded here because it constrains what a project like this could usefully do, and because the two clearest European wins on water in the last two decades were both political rather than technical.
Right2Water was the first European Citizens Initiative to succeed, gathering roughly 1.86 million signatures and clearing the threshold in seven member states. The Commission answered with a communication of commitments rather than legislation, which is itself the instructive part: the initiative moved the agenda and fell short of a law, and the revision of the Drinking Water Directive years later is where its effect actually shows.
The other is remunicipalisation, cities taking water services back into public hands. A water specific count could not be established in this pass. The database that tracks this counts 1,787 cases across 77 countries, but across all sectors rather than water alone, so no water number is printed here.
What a design commons for water would be, and is not
Every other requirement on the matrix has something in the fourth column that a person could download and build. Water does not, and one pass could not find one. The nearest active thing is open source data tooling for monitoring water and sanitation programmes, which governs water rather than producing it.
That is a genuine finding rather than a gap in the search, or at least it looks like one: the physical layer of water is pipes, catchment and treatment, all of which are civil infrastructure decided by whoever owns the ground. It is the requirement least amenable to the fourth mode, which may be the most useful sentence on this page.
Why that is not transferable
The matrix already records the uncomfortable half of this: a position that works in Vienna is not a position on water. Most of the world does not have a Hochquellenwasserleitung, and the places where water is genuinely contested are the places where none of the reasoning above applies.
This page does not attempt that larger argument. It is named here so that the silence is visibly a gap rather than a conclusion.
Where this leaves it
Open. This is the one requirement of the nine where the project holds a framing, holds no work, and holds no stated position on what should be built, and where the right move today is to say so.
If a position is wanted, the question to answer first is narrow: is water in scope for this project at all, given that the mechanism that works is public ownership and constitutional protection rather than anything a portfolio of tools can supply. That is a decision, and it has not been taken.
Recorded as missing on the matrix Nothing in the portfolio touches water. That is defensible in Vienna, where the commons already works, and indefensible as a general position: most of the world does not have a Hochquellenwasserleitung.
Sources
Tier A is a legal, governmental or scientific primary source, B is journalism or trade press, C is a community, project or company describing itself. Confidence below 0.7 is flagged and carries a stated reason. Where a figure could not be established it is named as unestablished rather than replaced with a plausible one.
| Claim | Publisher | Date | Tier | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vienna spring water is supplied by the municipality through Wiener Wasser (MA 31) | Stadt Wien | accessed 4 September 2026 | [A] | 0.9 |
| Vienna operates roughly 1,800 public drinking fountains | ORF Wien | April 2026 | [B] | 0.8 |
| Vienna requires a two-thirds council majority before its water supply could be sold, and Austria added constitutional protection for public drinking water in 2019 | Parlament Österreich | 2 July 2019 | [A] | 0.9 |
| UN General Assembly Resolution 64/292 recognises the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life, adopted by 122 votes to none with 41 abstentions | United Nations General Assembly | 28 July 2010 | [A] | 0.9 The resolution text was read directly. The vote split is taken from the UN library research guide rather than from the raw meeting record, which could not be reached. |
| Human Rights Council Resolution 15/9 affirms that the right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living, adopted without a vote | United Nations Human Rights Council | 30 September 2010 | [A] | 0.9 The resolution derives the right from existing treaty rights. It does not use the words legally binding, and this page does not put that phrase in its mouth. |
| One person in four, about 2.1 billion people, still lacked safely managed drinking water in 2024, including 106 million drinking directly from untreated surface water | WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme | 2025 report, reference year 2024 | [A] | 0.9 |
| The recast EU Drinking Water Directive requires member states to improve access to drinking water with a focus on vulnerable and marginalised groups, and to promote tap water in public spaces | European Commission | Directive (EU) 2020/2184, in force 12 January 2021, transposition due 12 January 2023 | [A] | 0.8 The obligation and the dates come from the Commission own page. The specific article number is commonly given as Article 16 in secondary sources and was not verified against the legal text, which was unreachable, so no article number is printed. |
| Right2Water was the first European Citizens Initiative to succeed, passing the threshold in 2013 with roughly 1.86 million certified signatures across seven member states; the Commission answered with a communication of seven commitments rather than a framework directive | Right2Water campaign, Commission response COM(2014) 177 | signatures closed September 2013, Commission response 19 March 2014 | [C] | Weakly supported: 0.6 Flagged. The certified count of 1,857,605 and the campaign own current figure of 1,884,790 do not agree, and the Commission response could only be reached through a tertiary source. The fact that it succeeded and that the answer fell short of legislation is solid; the precise numbers are not, so a rounded figure is printed. |
| The Public Futures database tracks 1,787 cases of services being taken back into public hands across 77 countries, across all sectors rather than water alone | Transnational Institute | accessed 4 September 2026 | [C] | Weakly supported: 0.65 An advocacy organisation counting cases it selects. Printed only as an all sectors figure: a water specific count could not be established, because the water focused reports were rate limited and unreachable in this pass. |
| Akvo applies open source software, open content and open data to water, sanitation and hygiene monitoring systems, currently working with UNICEF and several national programmes | Akvo Foundation | accessed 4 September 2026 | [C] | Weakly supported: 0.65 Open data tooling for governing and monitoring water, not open hardware and not a design commons for water infrastructure. Listed because it is the clearest active example found, and flagged because it is not the thing one would hope to find. |