I have been exploring these issues too, and have even made contact with the tech crew who represent Freegle to see where they are at.

Currently they are concerned with mashing up facebook and yahoo groups which just adds to the existing confusion. These reuse groups really need a tool set of their own in order to grow the number of local members and for reuse to become a household action.

I’m not sure an open source solution would get anywhere. Running a group site with hundreds of page requests is going to cost money, could local groups afford to keep an open source tool set hosted? Interested to know what people think.

The only other option is a centralized system, provided by someone like yahoo! having the right features and listening to the community. I think Freegle will need to navigate the past (Freecycle) in order for that to happen. It is very political.

Great thought provoking post!