SME licensing issues; SME Annual Conference; Philly, PA; June 7-9, 2009
Paul D. Fernhout
SME stands for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
The annual conference today:
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-event.pl?--001814-000007-home--SME-&id=highlights
"""
BREAKING THROUGH: SME Annual Conference
Hyatt Regency Philadelphia
Philadelphia PA USA
June 07, 2009 to June 09, 2009
Description
You're a manufacturer. You bring imagination, materials, and technologies
together to create products. Are you ready for an event designed to help you
break through to new possibilities? The 2009 SME Annual Conference is your
passport. This June, leading innovators will gather in Philadelphia to
discuss the state of the industry, emerging trends, and the technologies and
processes you'll be using in the near future.
Manufacturing Matters
This is a manufacturer's conference, created by SME members: people who
understand manufacturing, the need to innovate, and the need for
cutting-edge management strategies. No other conference brings you
face-to-face with fellow manufacturers from medical, aerospace, defense,
automotive, consumer products, and other vital industries. Join them to:
* Meet experts who can help you compete in a new reality
* Not only be here tomorrow, but have a thriving organization
* Gain insight into best practices to keep your operations competitive
* Become an agent for change and growth at your organization
SME—Where Manufacturing Comes Together
The 2009 SME Annual Conference is open not only to Society members, but to
all manufacturers looking for a proven source of expertise on technology
breakthroughs, equipment applications, and leadership.
"""
From the main page:
http://www.sme.org/
"""
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers is the world's leading professional
society advancing manufacturing knowledge and influencing more than half a
million manufacturing practitioners annually. Through its communities,
publications, expositions and professional development resources, SME
promotes an increased awareness of manufacturing engineering and keeps
manufacturing professionals up to date on leading trends and technologies.
Headquartered in Michigan, the Society has members in more than 70 countries
and represents manufacturing practitioners across all industries.
"""
My late father had been a member of SME, so I used to get all the magazines.
Regular membership in SME looks to be $125 a year now.
What SME claims:
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/eduhtml.pl?/html/studentzone.htm&&&SME&
"""
If you are a student interested in a career in manufacturing, joining SME
should be first on your "to-do" list. We are a one-stop shop for busy
students, offering everything from hard-to-find technical information on
state-of-the-art manufacturing processes and applications to providing you
unparalleled networking opportunities to help you land that first job on
your career path. ... "Corporations and foundations continue to support our
endowments because they know the future of manufacturing with its
accelerated introduction of advanced technologies demands it. We admire the
enthusiasm, intelligence and dedication of our scholarship award recipients.
It makes it all worthwhile," says Khalil S. Taraman, PhD, FSME, PE,
president, SME Education Foundation.
"""
They offer scholarships to children of SME members pursuing manufacturing
studies:
"About the SME Education Foundation Family Scholarship:
The SME Education Foundation seeks to support the children and grandchildren
of SME members, and to encourage their pursuit of careers in manufacturing
engineering and technology. This highly competitive scholarship, made
possible by the E. Wayne Kay Scholarship Fund, is awarded to students who
demonstrate academic excellence and an interest in manufacturing engineering
or a related technology."
Also:
"""
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation was created by
SME in 1979 as a means of transforming manufacturing education in North
American colleges and universities. As one of the nation's leading
non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing manufacturing education, its
approach is to inspire youth to pursue careers in manufacturing; support
students studying for a career in an engineering-related field, and prepare
these students to participate in a global economy. The Foundation has
provided more than $24 million in grants, scholarships and awards. Visit
www.smeef.org
http://www.smeef.org/cgi-bin/smeefhtml.pl?/foundation/foundation_hp.htm&&&SEF&
"""
Notice that SME is a non-profit organization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Manufacturing_Engineers
"Formed amid the Great Depression by a group of tool engineers and master
mechanics, the organization looked to collaborate on how to build what would
give the Motor City its name - the automobile."
Hmmm. Great Depression. ... Formed non-profit about collaboration... New
society changing product... Sound familiar? :-) "Open Manufacturing". :-)
Well, except for the forming a non-profit bit, but a couple people here have
formed related non-profits (P2PFoundation, Network for Open Scientific
Innovation, any others?)
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://p2pfoundation.net/Network_for_Open_Scientific_Innovation
Also from Wikipedia: "Through regularly scheduled meetings and activities,
SME Chapters serve as local forums for networking and contact building,
information sharing and problem solving. Chapters organize and sponsor plant
tours, conferences, guest speakers special events and other activities. More
than 200 senior chapters represent small regional areas, while student
chapters are centered in another 200 educational institutions worldwide."
That's all fantastic. Real people meeting in real places to talk about
making real things.
So, what about redirecting this organization to open ends? :-)
Or at least just having an open manufacturing Special Interest Group?
Again from stuff I wrote around 2001:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
"The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary
copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it
results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of
helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little
cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through
charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence,
with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by
the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become,
perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up
to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by
requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and
donations."
Both SME and the foundation are tax-exempt.
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-press.pl?&&20090022&PR&&SME&
"The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) is the premier source for
manufacturing knowledge, education and networking. Through its many
programs, events and activities, SME connects manufacturing practitioners to
each other, to the latest technology and the most up-to-date processes
spanning all manufacturing industries and disciplines, plus the key areas of
aerospace and defense, medical device, motor vehicles, including
motorsports, and oil and gas. A 501(c)3 organization, SME has members in
more than 70 countries and is supported by a network of technical
communities and chapters worldwide."
So basically, SME is using post-scarcity charitable dollars and tax
exemptions to finance the creation and distribution of artificial scarcity
of manufacturing information, which otherwise they could put up for free for
all on their website.
Instead, we get, for example:
"SME Technical Papers; Downloadable PDF $15 - FREE to SME Members"
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/getsmepg.pl?/html/techpapers.htm&&SME&
"More than 17,000 individual papers make SME's archive of manufacturing
knowledge the largest of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of pages report
best practices, ongoing advancements and industry trends within
manufacturing. New papers are added quarterly to this fundamental and
state-of-the-art database of information for manufacturing engineers,
managers, consultants, educators, students and technology professionals. ...
Want full access to SME's Technical Papers dating back to 1951? SME is now
offering online access through an IP recognition system for those who sign a
yearly license agreement. Contact public...@sme.org for more information."
To be blunt, I feel it is unethical for a tax-exempt non-profit to withhold
17000 papers on manufacturing from easy global distribution, just so some
current staff can make money for future activities by creating artificial
scarcity. That is 20th century ethical reasoning, now outdated by easy
distribution via the internet at no incremental cost (I'm sure there are
many places like Ibiblio or Archive.org who would host them for free if
bandwidth was an issue). And making things "members only" doesn't really
solve it, and I'd expect even members can't redistribute content or make
derivative works without special permission.
Well, you can see I am really turning on the charm to influence SME. :-)
Anyway, I'm not saying the SME doesn't do a lot of great things. I'm just
saying that as the internet has become all pervasive, the old
scarcity-oriented ways of doing things (subsidy publishing) are breaking
down ethically more quickly for non-profits than for-profits.
Note: I don't object to their charging $945 for a course run at a hotel:
"Introduction to Lean Manufacturing"
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-event.pl?--001854-000007-home--SME-
That's more like charging for services, which do have some significant
*direct* costs at the time of supply associated with providing them.
Although, even then, I'd suggest all the supplied materials at such
workshops should be under free and open licenses, including the ability to
make derived works.
Charging for a "webinar" is a more gray area; if there needs to be a human
around to host it and answer questions then it might make sense to charge,
but again any content should be freely licensed:
"GD&T Fundamentals Part 1: Controlling Form Webinar Price: $ 195.00"
http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-event.pl?--001877-000007---SME-
"This course is a fast-pace introduction to the tools available in ASME
Y14.5 for controlling surface, axis or center-plane form. Surfaces are
described first, with a focus on three-dimensional controls (flatness,
cylindricity and profile of a surface) but two-dimensional controls
(straightness, circularity and profile of a line) are also explained.
Feature-of-size applications and the use of the MMC and LMC modifier are
covered in detail. "
This is perhaps one issue an "open manufacturing" community might get some
traction on, to get SME to change its policies about the licensing of those
17000 documents to one of free redistribution with derivative works allowed,
probably by lobbying the board and/or membership over a period of years. Or
by lobbying Congress to change laws governing all tax-exempt non-profits and
any copyrights or patents they contribute to or hold, in whole or in part.
Anyway, so this proves I don't just give Bryan a hard time on copyright
issues. :-) But at least Bryan is listening. How do we get SME to listen to
this idea and act on it?
And I'd suggest, if SME made a big commitment to openness, they might even
*grow* their memberbase and their influence, like by hosting something like
with lots of definitive information about open manufacturing and how to make
and do things (OSCOMAK-ish or SKDB-ish or not), with all that coupled to
chapter meetings exploring the information and encouraging further
contributions by volunteer members.
I guess if I was more a get-up-and-go person I would drive down there and
start talking to people at the conference about this (until I got asked to
stop. :-)
--Paul Fernhout