[p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] Re: Preventing Exclusion in Open Manfuacturing

Thu Sep 3 12:05:22 CEST 2009

hi austin,

I formulated 3 laws to explain this dynamic:

- open beats closed

- open closed beats  closed closed

- open with closed beats open alone

so, in short, no individual company can compete with an open ecology, but no
open ecology without allied corporates seem to do very well either,

so I think we're plausibly stuck with hybrid models at this stage, because
both parties do something well and better in some aspects

I don't see open communities do the last mile well at all, they don't care
about the market/consumer ...

it is my understanding that even with GPL, most companies use open core and
dual license modalities, am I wrong?

(http://p2pfoundation.net/Dual_Licensing ;
http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Core)

The following is interesting (see below), because it shows how the 'shark'
dna of private companies can even use open source to purposesively try to
obtain a monopoly

Michel

The Commercial Open Source Business
Model<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-commercial-open-source-business-model/2009/09/04>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]Michel Bauwens
4th September 2009

 Commercial open source is controlled by exactly one stakeholder with the
purpose of commercially exploiting it … The Intellectual Property Rights
Imperative of Single-Vendor Commercial Open Source: *Always act in such a
way that you, and only you, possess the right to provide the open source
project under a license of your choice. *

Here’s an interesting article on “single-vendor commercial open source,”:

* *The Commercial Open Source Business
Model<http://dirkriehle.com/publications/2009/the-commercial-open-source-business-model/>,
Dirk Riehle*

*ABSTRACT:*

*“Commercial open source software projects are open source software projects
that are owned by a single firm that derives a direct and significant
revenue stream from the software. Commercial open source at first glance
represents an economic paradox: How can a firm earn money if it is making
its product available for free as open source? This paper presents the core
properties of commercial open source business models and discusses how they
work. Using a commercial open source approach, firms can get to market
faster with a superior product at lower cost than possible for traditional
competitors. The paper shows how these benefits accrue from an engaged and
self-supporting user community. Lacking any prior comprehensive reference,
this paper is based on an analysis of public statements by practitioners of
commercial open source. It forges the various anecdotes into a coherent
description of revenue generation strategies and relevant business
functions.”*

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Austin <brentley at gmail.com> wrote:

>  If Linux is the model....I think their GPL patent prohibits companies from
> making derivative works proprietary.  They can sell, but they must give all
> changes back to the community under the same GPL scheme.
>
> Some companies would be okay with that, but others might want to keep their
> changes private.  If the borrowed piece of technology constitutes only 1% of
> the overall design, the rest of the design (all 99% of it) has to be shared,
> no matter what.
>
> it would be interesting to see if a P2P community could produce derivatives
> faster than the entire universe of for-profit companies.  if the P2P guys
> created a technology and placed it under the public domain....many firms
> would want to use that free technology, improve it, and patent the
> non-public parts.  But if the P2P commuity is faster and more dynamic, they
> might be able to stay ahead of the curve, constantly producing more designs
> and prototypes and derivatives faster than the proprietary world can develop
> and patent their own improvements.  End result.....don't compete with the
> P2P guys for IP.....compete on price instead.  the designs are out
> there.....as a firm, your job is to be the best company at taking those free
> designs and mass producing them at a profit.
>
> -abb
>
>
> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
> How is that different from 8 though?
>
> <8. *Peer production proper*: communities create the value, using a
> Commons, with assistance from corporations who attempt to create derivative
> streams of value. Linux is the paradigmatic example.>
>
> you mean that in 8, 'partial' would be okay, but there would a special
> category for 'full' public domain?
>
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Austin <brentley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Michel,
>>
>> Just a question for you...
>>
>> in the list of production models, is there one for:
>>
>> community creates for themselves and for the world.  everything remains in
>> the public domain....corporations use this, add proprietary improvements,
>> and create for the consumers.  it seems like this model might fall in
>> between 8 and 9.
>>
>> -austin
>>
>> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>
>> Hi Austin,
>>
>> you may want to discuss your research with marc, a social capital funding
>> expert, now attending SoCap
>>
>> this may be of interest,  I've recapped my vision of the new production
>> ecologies that will complement, if not increasingly replace, proprietary
>> multinationals:
>>
>> Co-creation and the new industrial paradigm of peer production
>>
>> <What is the reality behind so called best practice co creation concepts?
>> Are these lipservice to co-creative approaches.  Are you really in the
>> drivers seat or are just being made to believe that you have influence on
>> the outcome. What are the building blocks of co-creation? Which conditions
>> are required. Are organisations really prepared to allow influence and
>> control of customers in their organisation and therefore become a co
>> creative organisation? >
>>
>>
>>
>> To understand the reality of illusion behind projects claiming to practice
>> co-creation or co-design, one must look at the polarities of power and
>> control that determine the context in which the co-creative processes take
>> place, with on the one hand the communities of external collaborators, and
>> on the other side, the corporate entities.
>>
>> But before tackling this issue in particular, it may be useful to see the
>> emerging new paradigm of production that is arising out of the new
>> participative processes.
>>
>> The new institutional reality could be described as follows:
>>
>> -          At the core are the enabling collaborative socio-technological
>> platforms, that allow knowledge workers, software developers and open design
>> communities to collaborate on joint projects.  Interesting questions
>> already arise here: who is the driving force behind the creation &
>> development of such platforms? They can be initiated by developing
>> communities, managed and maintained by a new type of non-profit institution
>> (like the FLOSS Foundations), or they can be corporate platforms that have
>> been opened up to external participants
>>
>>
>>
>> -          Around the corporate platform is the open design community and
>> the knowledge/software/design commons ruled by a set of licenses which
>> determine the particular nature of the property. Is it a true commons
>> license like the GPL, a sharing license like the Creative Commons where the
>> stress is on the individual sovereignity in determining the level of sharing
>> that is allowed; or is it a corporate license, giving very limited rights,
>> or with outright digital sharecropping, i.e. the expropriation of the
>> totality of the creative output reserved for usage by the organizing
>> corporation?
>>
>>
>>
>> -          Around the commons are the entrepreneurial coalitions that
>> benefit and sustain the design commons, create added value on top of it, and
>> sell this as products or services to the market. Important questions raised
>> here are: how is the coalition itself organized? Do all parties have equal
>> say, as in the Linux Foundation, or does one big party dominate, like with
>> the Eclipse Foundation and IBM. How does the business ecology relate to the
>> community. Is is nothing but a corporate commons?
>>
>>
>>
>> -          In addition, there is a funding infrastructure, the stream of
>> returns from the monetized market sphere, to the commons, its community, and
>> the infrastructure of cooperation? Do businesses support the community
>> directly, through the foundations? Is the government or a set of public
>> authorities involved.
>>
>>
>>
>> -          Finally, there is the role of public authorities and
>> governments in orchestrating the public-private-common triad in order to
>> benefit from the local effects of the new networked coopetition between
>> entrepreneurial coalitions and their linked communities.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> When we look at this set interlocking triad (community – foundation –
>> business) or quaternary structure (if public authorities are involved), we
>> can now distinguish at least 3 main models
>>
>>
>>
>> -          In commons centered peer production, like Linux, the community
>> is at the core, and a real commons operate, with the community strong enough
>> to sustain its own infrastructure, and cooperating with market players
>>
>>
>>
>> -          In a sharing environment, where individuals share their
>> creative endeavour, it is the corporate third party platform which monetizes
>> the attention space, and may control the platform to a significant degree;
>> the community does not control its own platform, but is not without power of
>> influence, since quick and massive mobilizations are always possible.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -          In a crowdsourced environment, participant producers are even
>> more isolated from each other, and the corporation integrates them in the
>> value chain which they control. Since individuals are here competing for
>> market value themselves, solidarity is more difficult to obtain, given
>> corporate platform owners more influence
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A good illustration of the various possibilities is Lego. Lego still
>> operates as a classical producer of toys, selling to consumer; in Lego
>> Factory, it has its crowdsourced environment, where co-designers can take a
>> cut of the kits they succeed in selling; the new Lego World virtual
>> environment is a sharing environment; finally, Lugnet is true
>> commons-oriented peer production, happening outside the control of the
>> company altogether.
>>
>>
>>
>> Here are ten different co-creation modalities, depending on the polarity
>> of control between peer producers and the corporate entities:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. *Consumers*: you make, they consume. The classic model.
>>
>> 2. *Self-service*: you make, they go get it themselves. This is where
>> consumers start becoming prosumers, but the parameters of the cooperation
>> are totally set by the producing corporation. It’s really not much more than
>> a strategy of externalization of costs. Think of ATM’s and gas stations. We
>> could call it simple externalization.
>>
>> 3. *Do-it-yourself*: you design, they make it themselves. One step
>> further, pioneered by the likes of Ikea, where the consumers, re-assembles
>> the product himself. Complex externalization of business processes.
>>
>> 4. *Company-based Crowdsourcing<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Crowdsourcing>.
>> *The company organizes a value chain which lets the wider public produce
>> the value, but under the control of the company.
>>
>> 5. *Co-design*: you set the parameters, but you design it together
>>
>> For examples, see here http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Co-Design
>>
>> 6. *Co-creativity*: you both create cooperatively. In this stage, the
>> corporation does not even set the parameters, the prosumer is an equal
>> partner in the development of new products. Perhaps the industrial model of
>> the adventure sports material makers would fit here.
>>
>> For examples, see here http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Co-Creation
>>
>> 7. *Sharing communities create the value, Web 2.0 proprietary platforms,
>> attempt to monetize participation*.
>>
>> 8. *Peer production proper*: communities create the value, using a
>> Commons, with assistance from corporations who attempt to create derivative
>> streams of value. Linux is the paradigmatic example.
>>
>> 9. *Peer production with cooperative production*: peer producers create
>> their own vehicles for monetization. The OS Alliance<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/OS_Alliance>is an example of this
>>
>> 10. *Peer production communities or sharing communities place themselves
>> explicitely outside of the monetary economy*.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Austin <brentley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Everyone,
>>>
>>> I've CC'd a few more people for this particular issue....
>>>
>>> Despite my initial love affair with royalties and dual licensing, I have
>>> come to the conclusion that it simply won't work. It's technically feasible,
>>> but realistically improbable for legal, financial, and philosophical
>>> reasons. Many of you said as much from the start, but I had to explore the
>>> issue from every angle possible.
>>>
>>> So I've explored different ways to start-up and sustain the project.
>>> Crowdfunding (from outside individuals and companies) and personal funding
>>> (by Peer-to-Peer contributors). Either/Both show promise.
>>>
>>> Crowdfunding is an interesting option, but how does one community (with
>>> many different projects, factions, and interests) allocate every new dollar
>>> that comes in from public donations? Would it simply be split up
>>> proportionately (i.e. the project with the most active members receives the
>>> largest chunk)? Who provides oversight….and who has the power to insert or
>>> remove this overseer? P2P funding doesn't have that problem since
>>> individuals donate their own money to their own projects and oversight is
>>> more localized…but if you can add in outside donations via crowdfunding, you
>>> have access to more money).
>>>
>>> On a different note….
>>> The benefits of P2P production are not worth disputing. But I also
>>> believe there are advantages from having larger for-profit firms as well. If
>>> they see a benefit in these public designs and want to commercialize certain
>>> products, the adoption of such solutions in the market might happen even
>>> faster. For every person who would be willing to search online for an
>>> assembly kit or smaller-scale P2P-created item, there are probably 1000 more
>>> who would prefer to go to Wal-Mart and buy an easy to find, ready-made
>>> version complete with a warranty. There would be marketing campaigns to
>>> support these commercial items, thus, removing the searching costs (and
>>> boosting the awareness) of end products.
>>>
>>> • If Profit Firm, Inc did indeed commercialize P2P product X, would they
>>> have to give improvements back? If so, what is the incentive for Profit
>>> Firm, Inc to get involved? Ostensibly it would have to compete on price and
>>> speed, but is that enough to attract a large group of players?
>>> • If Profit Firm Inc does not have to share its improvements (and can
>>> compete on product differentiation), what is the incentive for P2P producers
>>> to even create product X in the first place? Altruism and prosocial
>>> motivations might attract some people, but would that be enough?
>>>
>>> Is there a way to make access free while preserving the incentives for
>>> both parties: (P2P remains active, inventing and manufacturing…Profit Firms
>>> remain active, improving, commercializing, and taking ideas to the masses)?
>>>
>>> -Austin
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

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