But my impression during the last 2 months has been that GVCS
development doesn't make the expected progress.
1. Looking at the US OSE forum and especially the wiki, not much news.
The wiki is full of psychological games like "extreme interviewing"
and "extreme recruiting", not worth to spend time with that IMO.
Not much technical information/discussion or demonstration of progress
with the GVCS shown in the wiki now.
Seems as if completing the GVCS50 until 2013 now is impossible. Most
of the 50 machines haven't been started with manufacturing, many are
even not on the drawing board yet.
2. Looking at the OSEE forums, there is still some activity there.
Most activity now is in subjects like "free energy"....
According to actual valid laws of physics, there is no free energy !
Okay, maybe those laws aren't absolutely right. But the chances that
free energy is possible on our planet are pretty close to zero. Maybe
somewhere in the universe.
And even more, the possibility of folks at FeF, who failed in
developing a farm tractor and a sawmill, manufacturing the first "free
energy machine" are lower than zero.
So I wonder why we are loosing time in discussing free energy???
On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Bastelmike <mischa...@yahoo.de> wrote:
> Hello,
> my header may be a bit procating.
> But my impression during the last 2 months has been that GVCS
> development doesn't make the expected progress.
> 1. Looking at the US OSE forum and especially the wiki, not much news.
> The wiki is full of psychological games like "extreme interviewing"
> and "extreme recruiting", not worth to spend time with that IMO.
> Not much technical information/discussion or demonstration of progress
> with the GVCS shown in the wiki now.
> Seems as if completing the GVCS50 until 2013 now is impossible. Most
> of the 50 machines haven't been started with manufacturing, many are
> even not on the drawing board yet.
> 2. Looking at the OSEE forums, there is still some activity there.
> Most activity now is in subjects like "free energy"....
> According to actual valid laws of physics, there is no free energy !
> Okay, maybe those laws aren't absolutely right. But the chances that
> free energy is possible on our planet are pretty close to zero. Maybe
> somewhere in the universe.
> And even more, the possibility of folks at FeF, who failed in
> developing a farm tractor and a sawmill, manufacturing the first "free
> energy machine" are lower than zero.
> So I wonder why we are loosing time in discussing free energy???
My read on things is that Marcin has embraced Agile Manufacturing and has started to re-organize OSE around it. Though he hasn't explicitly said so, I think, the GVCS-50 by end of 2012 is not going to happen.
Instead, there is a new two year plan. I also note that OSE has a long history of revising it's "two year plans".
Beyond the planning, there doesn't seem to be as much transparency as there used to be. What is the status of the OSE Car, for example? The Iron Worker was close to done - is it complete? Is there a GVCS 0.02 version planned?
> But my impression during the last 2 months has been that GVCS
> development doesn't make the expected progress.
> 1. Looking at the US OSE forum and especially the wiki, not much news.
> The wiki is full of psychological games like "extreme interviewing"
> and "extreme recruiting", not worth to spend time with that IMO.
> Not much technical information/discussion or demonstration of progress
> with the GVCS shown in the wiki now.
> Seems as if completing the GVCS50 until 2013 now is impossible. Most
> of the 50 machines haven't been started with manufacturing, many are
> even not on the drawing board yet.
> 2. Looking at the OSEE forums, there is still some activity there.
> Most activity now is in subjects like "free energy"....
> According to actual valid laws of physics, there is no free energy !
> Okay, maybe those laws aren't absolutely right. But the chances that
> free energy is possible on our planet are pretty close to zero. Maybe
> somewhere in the universe.
> And even more, the possibility of folks at FeF, who failed in
> developing a farm tractor and a sawmill, manufacturing the first "free
> energy machine" are lower than zero.
> So I wonder why we are loosing time in discussing free energy???
> But my impression during the last 2 months has been that GVCS
> development doesn't make the expected progress.
> 1. Looking at the US OSE forum and especially the wiki, not much news.
> The wiki is full of psychological games like "extreme interviewing"
> and "extreme recruiting", not worth to spend time with that IMO.
> Not much technical information/discussion or demonstration of progress
> with the GVCS shown in the wiki now.
> Seems as if completing the GVCS50 until 2013 now is impossible. Most
> of the 50 machines haven't been started with manufacturing, many are
> even not on the drawing board yet.
> 2. Looking at the OSEE forums, there is still some activity there.
> Most activity now is in subjects like "free energy"....
> According to actual valid laws of physics, there is no free energy !
> Okay, maybe those laws aren't absolutely right. But the chances that
> free energy is possible on our planet are pretty close to zero. Maybe
> somewhere in the universe.
> And even more, the possibility of folks at FeF, who failed in
> developing a farm tractor and a sawmill, manufacturing the first "free
> energy machine" are lower than zero.
> So I wonder why we are loosing time in discussing free energy???
> On May 18, 2012, at 9:03 PM, Bastelmike <mischa...@yahoo.de> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > my header may be a bit procating.
> > But my impression during the last 2 months has been that GVCS
> > development doesn't make the expected progress.
> > 1. Looking at the US OSE forum and especially the wiki, not much news.
> > The wiki is full of psychological games like "extreme interviewing"
> > and "extreme recruiting", not worth to spend time with that IMO.
> > Not much technical information/discussion or demonstration of progress
> > with the GVCS shown in the wiki now.
> > Seems as if completing the GVCS50 until 2013 now is impossible. Most
> > of the 50 machines haven't been started with manufacturing, many are
> > even not on the drawing board yet.
I mostly agree on that, Marcin seems too optimistic and is the single
leader. Also see my posts in OSE Germany.
> > 2. Looking at the OSEE forums, there is still some activity there.
> > Most activity now is in subjects like "free energy"....
> > According to actual valid laws of physics, there is no free energy !
Of course there is none, but there are always people who explore this
topic. As we are open, we may give our opinion on these topics but let the
others learn. Think of religion. If it fulfills them, then let it be. I am
fed up with free energy stuff. As a side, Alvaro did some great work with
his explanations.
> And even more, the possibility of folks at FeF, who failed in
> developing a farm tractor and a sawmill, manufacturing the first "free
> energy machine" are lower than zero.
Well they did develop machines, but most of them are not safe to operate
nor really finished.* Not a single one* has yet reached their GVCS goals.
> So I wonder why we are loosing time in discussing free energy???
> Don't we have projects that make more sense?
Get off the rant chair and start acting ;-) It's not good criticism if it
does not include ways to make it better. My critics about safety and GVCS
aims did not result in any change and messages haven't been answered. I am
glad, that we will make it better at opensourceecology.de ;-)
Do you have a lathe and some stock material at home? E-Mail me and I can
give you CAD files for parts that we need for prototyping TiVA.
And Mike, if you can manage it, then stop by at the 25th next week in
Berlin, there's our first OSE Germany meeting. We need engineers like you!
A solar panel is a free energy device. The "free" in "free energy" means
the operator don't have to do work to put energy into the device (eg.
recharging a battery or re-fuelling a combustion engine) to get energy out
as the energy is transferred from the environment. The standard model
doesn't say that solar panels are impossible. One can argue that using the
word free is a bad choice, but this is the intended meaning. It has nothing
to do with the financial cost of building the device.
Google free energy and renewable energy, one usually means Perpetuum mobile
stuff when talking about free energy.
On May 18, 2012 11:01 PM, "Casper Hornstrup" <casper.hornst...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> A solar panel is a free energy device. The "free" in "free energy" means
> the operator don't have to do work to put energy into the device (eg.
> recharging a battery or re-fuelling a combustion engine) to get energy out
> as the energy is transferred from the environment. The standard model
> doesn't say that solar panels are impossible. One can argue that using the
> word free is a bad choice, but this is the intended meaning. It has nothing
> to do with the financial cost of building the device.
You are right, that me too, I am not really contributing to GVCS
development. My spare time is limited and I have neither the capital
nor the equipment at hand to do it on my own.
But looking at the GVCS progress its frustrating, and there is some
capital and workforce available. Nevertheless results have been poor
until now.
There are several typical steps that are often repeated in every
machine development.
Step 1
A machine is choosen and design goals are set, according to OSE
specifications. A design thats competitive with commercial products.
Step 2
While starting with design, folks involved learn or get taught about
the difficulties of designing and/or manufacturing it.
A new primitive concept is developed, differing much from proven
industrial designs, ignoring the fact that there has been already a
longtime evolution of industrial machines. With every type of machine,
many different concepts have already been tried out and abandoned.
In spite of this OSE does some reinventing the wheel.
Step 3
With an already poor basic concept, detail design is started. For a
bundle of reasons, details are worked out poor, differing from
standards, without necessary calculations and ignoring not-to-dos in
machinery building.
This design is converted to blueprints, with low quality too. It seem
to be an absolute no-go in OSE to specify something like tolerances,
just because it might show its fans that it isn't easy to build that
machine and a lot of equipment and skills are needed.
Step 4
Now lets start manufacturing of the prototype. Again with poor
equipment and knowhow. Using a lathe, a cylindrical grinder or a
boring mill would damage OSEs claim that producing open source
machines is a magnitude cheaper than commercial built ones are.
Therefore manufacturing quality is poor too.
Citation from Mark J. Norton: "practicality rules"
Step 5
With prototypes finished and during testing, the disappointment phase
starts. The machine works poor, its troublesome to operate and it
breaks. Some people start discussing aspects like safety, warranty and
liability and environmental protection laws.
Step 6
The machines are put aside and design of another machines starts,
usually repeating these steps
All the different mistakes have one thing in common: deviation from
industry standards in concept, engineering and manufacturing!
Some people here may not think so, but I am a firm believer that doing
things different than others has only a tiny chance of success.
Its a dificult task to build a good successful machine, let's say a
tractor, if you don't have decades of experience in designing and
manufacturing of tractors. Doing it in a way differing much from the
competition virtually nullifies your probability of success !
> You are right, that me too, I am not really contributing to GVCS
> development. My spare time is limited and I have neither the capital
> nor the equipment at hand to do it on my own.
> But looking at the GVCS progress its frustrating, and there is some
> capital and workforce available. Nevertheless results have been poor
> until now.
> There are several typical steps that are often repeated in every
> machine development.
> Step 1
> A machine is choosen and design goals are set, according to OSE
> specifications. A design thats competitive with commercial products.
> Step 2
> While starting with design, folks involved learn or get taught about
> the difficulties of designing and/or manufacturing it.
> A new primitive concept is developed, differing much from proven
> industrial designs, ignoring the fact that there has been already a
> longtime evolution of industrial machines. With every type of machine,
> many different concepts have already been tried out and abandoned.
> In spite of this OSE does some reinventing the wheel.
> Step 3
> With an already poor basic concept, detail design is started. For a
> bundle of reasons, details are worked out poor, differing from
> standards, without necessary calculations and ignoring not-to-dos in
> machinery building.
> This design is converted to blueprints, with low quality too. It seem
> to be an absolute no-go in OSE to specify something like tolerances,
> just because it might show its fans that it isn't easy to build that
> machine and a lot of equipment and skills are needed.
> Step 4
> Now lets start manufacturing of the prototype. Again with poor
> equipment and knowhow. Using a lathe, a cylindrical grinder or a
> boring mill would damage OSEs claim that producing open source
> machines is a magnitude cheaper than commercial built ones are.
> Therefore manufacturing quality is poor too.
> Citation from Mark J. Norton: "practicality rules"
> Step 5
> With prototypes finished and during testing, the disappointment phase
> starts. The machine works poor, its troublesome to operate and it
> breaks. Some people start discussing aspects like safety, warranty and
> liability and environmental protection laws.
> Step 6
> The machines are put aside and design of another machines starts,
> usually repeating these steps
> All the different mistakes have one thing in common: deviation from
> industry standards in concept, engineering and manufacturing!
> Some people here may not think so, but I am a firm believer that doing
> things different than others has only a tiny chance of success.
> Its a dificult task to build a good successful machine, let's say a
> tractor, if you don't have decades of experience in designing and
> manufacturing of tractors. Doing it in a way differing much from the
> competition virtually nullifies your probability of success !
You're missing an important component of the "problem" with OSE:
anarchy.
A main motivation behind OSE is liberation. If people can build their
own productivity tools, they can free themselves from a coercive
global marketplace. This type of thinking is very popular among
anarchists, and anarchists don't like being told what to do, which
places Marcin in a difficult position: the more people are interested
in OSE, the less likely they'll be interested in taking orders from
him.
I've spent a lot of time working with Occupy Wall Street and found
that interpersonal issues create massive roadblocks to 'getting shit
done.' It's very difficult to motivate people in a horizontal, non-
coercive, volunteer led community to do anything but their own
"thing." Over time people have more shared experiences, discover
their unique skills and build bonds of trust with each other. Then
more deep and productive collaborations can take place. I don't see
how projects like OSE can move forward in any other way.
Technology develop can happened much more rapidly than human
relationship development - and OSE needs both to take place to
succeed.
Whether or not OSE achieves it's goal of producing the GVCS, it has
and will continue to push the envelop in free/libre/opensource
production. I wish there was more documentation on the interpersonal
experiences taking place on FeF. The "social technology" of
interpersonal relationships is just as important as the hardware
technology of the GVCS tools.
In other news - any OSErs in the Northeastern US? I have access to
land and want to get to work on a fabrication facility!
On May 19, 4:24 pm, Jose Bravo <monove...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > You are right, that me too, I am not really contributing to GVCS
> > development. My spare time is limited and I have neither the capital
> > nor the equipment at hand to do it on my own.
> > But looking at the GVCS progress its frustrating, and there is some
> > capital and workforce available. Nevertheless results have been poor
> > until now.
> > There are several typical steps that are often repeated in every
> > machine development.
> > Step 1
> > A machine is choosen and design goals are set, according to OSE
> > specifications. A design thats competitive with commercial products.
> > Step 2
> > While starting with design, folks involved learn or get taught about
> > the difficulties of designing and/or manufacturing it.
> > A new primitive concept is developed, differing much from proven
> > industrial designs, ignoring the fact that there has been already a
> > longtime evolution of industrial machines. With every type of machine,
> > many different concepts have already been tried out and abandoned.
> > In spite of this OSE does some reinventing the wheel.
> > Step 3
> > With an already poor basic concept, detail design is started. For a
> > bundle of reasons, details are worked out poor, differing from
> > standards, without necessary calculations and ignoring not-to-dos in
> > machinery building.
> > This design is converted to blueprints, with low quality too. It seem
> > to be an absolute no-go in OSE to specify something like tolerances,
> > just because it might show its fans that it isn't easy to build that
> > machine and a lot of equipment and skills are needed.
> > Step 4
> > Now lets start manufacturing of the prototype. Again with poor
> > equipment and knowhow. Using a lathe, a cylindrical grinder or a
> > boring mill would damage OSEs claim that producing open source
> > machines is a magnitude cheaper than commercial built ones are.
> > Therefore manufacturing quality is poor too.
> > Citation from Mark J. Norton: "practicality rules"
> > Step 5
> > With prototypes finished and during testing, the disappointment phase
> > starts. The machine works poor, its troublesome to operate and it
> > breaks. Some people start discussing aspects like safety, warranty and
> > liability and environmental protection laws.
> > Step 6
> > The machines are put aside and design of another machines starts,
> > usually repeating these steps
> > All the different mistakes have one thing in common: deviation from
> > industry standards in concept, engineering and manufacturing!
> > Some people here may not think so, but I am a firm believer that doing
> > things different than others has only a tiny chance of success.
> > Its a dificult task to build a good successful machine, let's say a
> > tractor, if you don't have decades of experience in designing and
> > manufacturing of tractors. Doing it in a way differing much from the
> > competition virtually nullifies your probability of success !
> You're missing an important component of the "problem" with OSE:
> anarchy.
> A main motivation behind OSE is liberation. If people can build their
> own productivity tools, they can free themselves from a coercive
> global marketplace. This type of thinking is very popular among
> anarchists, and anarchists don't like being told what to do, which
> places Marcin in a difficult position: the more people are interested
> in OSE, the less likely they'll be interested in taking orders from
> him.
> I've spent a lot of time working with Occupy Wall Street and found
> that interpersonal issues create massive roadblocks to 'getting shit
> done.' It's very difficult to motivate people in a horizontal, non-
> coercive, volunteer led community to do anything but their own
> "thing." Over time people have more shared experiences, discover
> their unique skills and build bonds of trust with each other. Then
> more deep and productive collaborations can take place. I don't see
> how projects like OSE can move forward in any other way.
> Technology develop can happened much more rapidly than human
> relationship development - and OSE needs both to take place to
> succeed.
> Whether or not OSE achieves it's goal of producing the GVCS, it has
> and will continue to push the envelop in free/libre/opensource
> production. I wish there was more documentation on the interpersonal
> experiences taking place on FeF. The "social technology" of
> interpersonal relationships is just as important as the hardware
> technology of the GVCS tools.
> In other news - any OSErs in the Northeastern US? I have access to
> land and want to get to work on a fabrication facility!
> On May 19, 4:24 pm, Jose Bravo <monove...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > mostly agree
> > > You are right, that me too, I am not really contributing to GVCS
> > > development. My spare time is limited and I have neither the capital
> > > nor the equipment at hand to do it on my own.
> > > But looking at the GVCS progress its frustrating, and there is some
> > > capital and workforce available. Nevertheless results have been poor
> > > until now.
> > > There are several typical steps that are often repeated in every
> > > machine development.
> > > Step 1
> > > A machine is choosen and design goals are set, according to OSE
> > > specifications. A design thats competitive with commercial products.
> > > Step 2
> > > While starting with design, folks involved learn or get taught about
> > > the difficulties of designing and/or manufacturing it.
> > > A new primitive concept is developed, differing much from proven
> > > industrial designs, ignoring the fact that there has been already a
> > > longtime evolution of industrial machines. With every type of machine,
> > > many different concepts have already been tried out and abandoned.
> > > In spite of this OSE does some reinventing the wheel.
> > > Step 3
> > > With an already poor basic concept, detail design is started. For a
> > > bundle of reasons, details are worked out poor, differing from
> > > standards, without necessary calculations and ignoring not-to-dos in
> > > machinery building.
> > > This design is converted to blueprints, with low quality too. It seem
> > > to be an absolute no-go in OSE to specify something like tolerances,
> > > just because it might show its fans that it isn't easy to build that
> > > machine and a lot of equipment and skills are needed.
> > > Step 4
> > > Now lets start manufacturing of the prototype. Again with poor
> > > equipment and knowhow. Using a lathe, a cylindrical grinder or a
> > > boring mill would damage OSEs claim that producing open source
> > > machines is a magnitude cheaper than commercial built ones are.
> > > Therefore manufacturing quality is poor too.
> > > Citation from Mark J. Norton: "practicality rules"
> > > Step 5
> > > With prototypes finished and during testing, the disappointment phase
> > > starts. The machine works poor, its troublesome to operate and it
> > > breaks. Some people start discussing aspects like safety, warranty and
> > > liability and environmental protection laws.
> > > Step 6
> > > The machines are put aside and design of another machines starts,
> > > usually repeating these steps
> > > All the different mistakes have one thing in common: deviation from
> > > industry standards in concept, engineering and manufacturing!
> > > Some people here may not think so, but I am a firm believer that doing
> > > things different than others has only a tiny chance of success.
> > > Its a dificult task to build a good successful machine, let's say a
> > > tractor, if you don't have decades of experience in designing and
> > > manufacturing of tractors. Doing it in a way differing much from the
> > > competition virtually nullifies your probability of success !
> Some people here may not think so, but I am a firm believer that doing
> things different than others has only a tiny chance of success.
> Its a dificult task to build a good successful machine, let's say a
> tractor, if you don't have decades of experience in designing and
> manufacturing of tractors. Doing it in a way differing much from the
> competition virtually nullifies your probability of success !
While much of your post does reflect reality w.r.t to OSE, I don't quite agree with your conclusion.
OSE is a fundamentally different approach to building a set of machines that could be used to start a small community from scratch. It relies heavily on boostrapping, since many of the machines require other machines to make them. Also, the end goal is quite different. In the commercial marketplace, the end goal is to produce a high quality item with sufficient appeal to make money. In the OSE view, the end goal is to enable/empower a small group of people to make the tools they need to create a healthy, happy life in a village setting. Personally, I believe that will have some impact on the overall process itself.
Open Source development is founded (in part) on the idea that many people working on a problem can lead to a quality solution - eventually. A group of people come together, work up a design, and build a prototype. Ideally, they identify the problems in the original design, and improve it. Through iteration comes continuous improvement. I fundamentally believe this approach can work and it has been proven in a number of hardware projects as well as countless software projects. I offer the Mendel 3D printer as an example. Part of the reason why this work has to do with getting a critical mass of people working on a specific project and hammering away at it over years of development. OSE, under Marcin's leadership, has not enabled projects to be organized and developed in a manner that promotes continuous improvement. In earlier days, distributed development was actively discouraged. That is changing with the new "Agile Manufacturing" approach, but it is still quite disorganized.
I believe that every GVCS machine could be the focus of a development effort that results in a good quality, safe, and inexpensive product.
However (in my opinion), OSE has not been and is not set up to develop these products using sound OS development techniques. The new Agile approach may change that, but personally I doubt it. It is difficult to form a team, get the resources you need, and sustain development activity in the current OSE organization. I speak from personal experience, here. Regardless, I still believe in the OSE vision and continue to support what ever progress we can make towards that goal.
It's going to take time - likely, a LOT of time.
A succession of two-year plans actually doesn't make this easier, either. If it were me, I'd select 3 or 4 key GVCS tools (lathe, iron worker, etc.) and set up sustained teams around them. Get them built, get them released, and get them into a cycle of continuous improvement.
Then move on to the next 3 or 4. Agile development techniques could be used to make this work, but I think the methodology is less important than scoping the work to be done, getting the right people in place, and create the community culture needed to sustain development and improvement over a long period of time (tens of years).
One final note on expertise. Bastelmike is correct that skill is need to design, prototype, and manufacture any machine. However, it does not require professional expertise (nice if you can get it, however). A good project team, led by someone with decent people skills, will lead to improvements not only in the product itself, but in the skills of it's contributors. If CAD drawings do not indicate precision guidelines, then one or more people need to take the time to understand what that means and learn what it takes to add it. Over time, the team will develop the skills needed to make a high quality product that meets the requirements of it's end user.
The key thing here is TIME. In theory, an open source development effort should be free to take what ever time it needs to get the job done. If it takes two or three years (or more) to design and prototype an OS stepper motor - so what? The team will motivate itself based on community needs, rather than quarterly profit demands. Marcin has a habit of imposing rather silly deadlines and goals that I believe actually undermine the development process. Consider last year's "GVCS-50 by end of 2012" plan. Does anyone believe that is actually going to happen? Not me.
In sum, I believe that OSE can work and that the GVCS can be built in a way that meets the needs of individuals and small villages. That said, the process to date has led to the observations Bastelmike made in his post.
