Future of open hardware?

[Bryan Bishop]

Hi all,

I was invited to contribute to a workshop on the future of open hardware. The general questions we'll be yapping about are:

What are the key tools for design and fabrication that will emerge over the next decade?

What infrastructure, support systems, resources, skills etc. will be important to the open fab ecosystem/movement?

What new IP norms and standards might be reflected in this community?

What kinds of new manufacturing needs might be addressed by fabrication?

I can talk endlessly on all of these topics. However, in the interest of not being a total dick, a public discussion is totally necessary. Here's some topics I am thinking of bringing up:

open source CAD (BRLCAD, OpenCASCADE, pythonOCC, HeeksCAD, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, ToyBrep/lolcad, ...)
html5 cad (cloudscad, thingiview.js (via three.js), webgl, bjnortier's project, autodesk labs had something..., ...)
future of thingiverse
biology-related fabrication, like fabrication of DNA, cells, tissues, organs; synthetic biology
hackerspaces/fablabs/openfarmtech
National Fab Lab Network Act of 2010
kickstarter being used for open hardware prototyping and projects (but this isn't what kickstarter was really for)
hackerspace incubator fund
copyright vs. patents
copyright licenses (TAPR, CC, GPL, BSD..)
patent reform
"model patent license"
innovation paradigms (health impact fund, knowledge economy international)
some of Kevin Carson's cottage industry writing
some of Hod Lipson's recent report ("The emerging economy of desktop manufacturing")
some of Adrian's UK intellectual property document
"Rise of the Expert Amateur"
"It will be awesome if they don't screw it up"

Anything else?

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Jordan Miller]

awesome!!! I would really like to see a discussion on successful/unsuccessful business models for open source manufacturing. lots of people see the tremendous opportunities here but don't know ways it has been done successfully, or the pitfalls to avoid. successfully capitalizing here may help grow these areas much more rapidly.

jordan

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[Thomas Fledrich]

It would be interesting to see a comparison of open vs. commercial hardware products, especially those that would be usable finished goods for a wide range of people and to see some numbers on input costs and work time comparing these two approaches. Then highlight the areas where open source manufacturing has a good chance of outperforming commercial options using current or near future manufacturing tools.

Many thanks Brian for maintaining a steady presence in the subject and helping to popularize open hardware, keep up the good work!

Thomas

[Maira Begalli]

hi bryan

MetaReciclagem -  set of principles - the use and development of free and open source software, and the commitment of publishing content with open licenses. Its actions are organised upon three axes: a Spore is a lab that works as local reference, place for articulation and support; a ConecTAZ is any kind of collective action for specific purposes.
http://rede.metareciclagem.org

2011/2/27 Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com>

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[James - Coder by day, fabber by night]

Bryan,
Great topic list. How about also:

- STEM programs for engaging the next generation of engineers
- open source sensors (possible? practical?)

When/where is the workshop? Would anyone in the Boston/New England
area be interested in a similar workshop?

-jb

On Feb 27, 5:55 pm, Maira Begalli <mairabega...@veredas.net> wrote:
> hi bryan
>
> MetaReciclagem -  set of principles - the use and development of free and
> open source software, and the commitment of publishing content with open
> licenses. Its actions are organised upon three axes: a Spore is a lab that
> works as local reference, place for articulation and support; a ConecTAZ is
> any kind of collective action for specific purposes.http://rede.metareciclagem.org
>

> 2011/2/27 Bryan Bishop <kanz...@gmail.com>

> http://bikini.veredas.nethttp://mutgamb.orghttp://rede.metareciclagem.org<http://rede.metarecilaem.org/>
> <http://redelabs.org>

[Paul D. Fernhout]

On 2/27/11 12:14 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> What new IP norms and standards might be reflected in this community?

The term "Intellectual Property" begs the question of how copyrights,
patents, trademarks, and trade secrets (all different things) should be
treated (as scarce "property" or not?). From Richard Stallman:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
"It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and
trademarks�three separate and different entities involving three
separate and different sets of laws�plus a dozen other laws into one pot
and call it �intellectual property�. The distorting and confusing term
did not become common by accident. Companies that gain from the
confusion promoted it. The clearest way out of the confusion is to
reject the term entirely. ..."

And, also, if copyrights etc. were "property", why are they not annually
taxed like real estate?
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/biplog/archive/000431.html

On the list you made, here are two socioeconomic concerns which touch on
those issues related to a balance of four economies and (my usual)
overcoming irony.

There have always been essentially four different types of economies
that were interwoven (subsistence economy, gift economy, planned
economy, and exchange economy). The issue is how they are in balance,
and how social movements and related technological change change their
balance.

A summary of that concept is here:
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/more-on-the-future-implications-ibm-watson-technology/#comment-534
"""
As I see it, there have always been four interwoven economies, and the
balance of them is shaped by our society:
* A subsistence economy (�There�s some lovely berries over here.�);
* A gift economy (�The meat from this deer is going to spoil; let�s
share it with the tribe.�);
* A planned economy (�Let�s put the longhouse here.�);
* An exchange economy (�You scratch my back, I�ll scratch yours.�);
Paid human labor has less and less value due to robotics, AI, and
other automation, due to better design, due to the accumulation of
physical infrastructure, and/or due to the emergence of voluntary social
networks.
Mainstream economists try to get around this by assuming infinite
demand, but that is just not in accord with human psychology or social
dynamics (see Maslow�s Hierarchy of Needs, or an emerging �Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle� ethic, or see any of the world�s major religions �
including humanism � about moving beyond materialistic values).
So, we can expect the balance between those four economies to change
as our technology and society changes, perhaps with:
* A subsistence economy through 3D printing and local PV solar panels;
* A gift economy through the internet, like sharing digital files to use
with our 3D printers;
* A planned economy on a variety of scales, including through taxes,
subsidies and regulation affecting market dynamics; and
* An exchange economy marketplace softened by a basic income.
"""

And, my usual, the biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of
technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of
scarcity, which one can consider in light of the previous point about
economic balance and thinking about moving beyond "artificial scarcity"
as a business model or a security precept.

Also, as an example, George Whitesides work on cheap medical testing is
awesome, and is amenable to DIY-Bio experimentation:

http://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_a_lab_the_size_of_a_postage_stamp.html

It would be great to have cheap tests for nutritional status related to
vitamin D (Cannell) from supplements and phytonutrients (Fuhrman) from
vegetables, fruits, and beans. The cheap DIY medical testing concept
shows the intersection between health empowerment movements and DIY
design and manufacturing movements. It may also have a profound
potential cost savings (literally trillions of US dollars a year might
be saved by people being easily aware of their personal nutritional
profile on a regular basis), and that cost savings could easily fund
endless open hardware research (or a basic income, etc.). As I suggested
elsewhere, the discouragement of cooperation on the one issue of vitamin
D as researchers focused on proprietary things may have cost our society
literally a hundred trillion dollars over the past century in excess
health care costs, where those immense costs are then, ironically, used
to justify even more proprietary research. Related:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005081.html

Good luck on your talk.

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies
of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

[dmuren]

Bryan-

I'm excited to meet you in person tomorrow. We've got a lot of stuff
to talk about. I'm glad you're going to cover the tech end of the
making spectrum. That needs to be part of the conversation, and I
don't know who there is better to bring it up.

I'll pick up the other end of the spectrum - the materials question:
Open Software is easy because bytes can be fabricated out of thin air.
"Open" hardware based on materials which are not ubiquitous,
renewable, or easily created, is de facto closed, especially for
everyone in the pyramid below the tiny golden tip. Somebody's got to
work on this end of things, or "Open" hardware will be controlled by
big business anyway.

See you tomorrow,
-Dominic
--------------------------
Dominic Muren
Editor, www.humblefacture.com
Founder, Humblefactory.com : Empowering the Cottage Industrialist
Twitter: @dmuren

> - Bryanhttp://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507

[Rob Myers]

On 02/28/2011 04:38 PM, dmuren wrote:
>
> Open Software is easy because bytes can be fabricated out of thin air.

Hackers gotta eat. And they need access to hardware ((c) every left wing
critic of free software ever).

> "Open" hardware based on materials which are not ubiquitous,
> renewable, or easily created, is de facto closed, especially for
> everyone in the pyramid below the tiny golden tip.

That's why it's better to talk about freedom rather than openness, such
as the freedom to use those materials when you can avail yourself of them.

- Rob.

[John Griessen]

On 02/27/2011 11:14 AM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> Anything else?

What are the key tools for discovering free-open-hardware customers
that will emerge over the next year?

John

[Leo Dearden]

Crucial (and AFAICS ignored) tool: diff / merge / patch for the relevant sorts of CAD.

This seems hard to do well enough to be useful. The fact that we don't have it goes a long way to explaining the endless minor forks in RepRap.

Thanks for asking.

Will there be video of the panel?

Cheers

Leo

[Jordan Miller]

if we do our job right the customers will find us. most people want something they can afford that just works before they care at all about how open the system is. the best way to win customers is to simultaneously optimize the best and most cost effective solution (note: this doesn't have to be the lowest in total cost, but often it is).

jordan

[Jordan Miller]

reprap has been rapidly standardizing on openscad thanks to Tim and Josef and many many others, there's now a ton of momentum here. OpenSCAD code is highly diff-able, it works well on github, and Josef is even building the tools for automated documentation (ThingDoc).

jordan

[Windell H. Oskay]

On Mar 1, 2011, at 4:55 AM, Jordan Miller wrote:

> reprap has been rapidly standardizing on openscad thanks to Tim and Josef and many many others, there's now a ton of momentum here. OpenSCAD code is highly diff-able, it works well on github, and Josef is even building the tools for automated documentation (ThingDoc).
>
> jordan

As are the file formats from the other open-source CAD programs.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was invited to contribute to a workshop on the future of open hardware. The general questions we'll be yapping about are:

transcript- sorry for the low quality, i'm juggling multiple laptops these days and picked the one with the wrong keyboard :-(

http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/iftf_open_hardware_future_workshop.html

[Jordan Miller]

sounds like you need plover:
http://plover.stenoknight.com/

thanks for the notes!

jordan