[p2p-research] decentralizing open source bike production?

[Samuel Rose]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 10:01 PM, Michel Bauwens<michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suggest we look more closely at communities that have already achieved
> critical mass, both at designing and producing open designs, like what seems
> to be a thriving Arduino community, they are in an ongoing quest to find
> practical solutions, like for example the creation of their open hardware
> bank, but I would love more detailed descriptions of their business models,
> forms of ownership, etc..


In this case, most of the people working with Arduino have at least
the means of production to employ Arduino towards the ends they are
interested in, if not the ability to make Arduino itself. Arduino is
usually a component in a larger project of some sort. So, possessing
at least a minimal "means of production" is usually a given for people
in this ecology.

Another important point about successful open source projects is that
the networks that you observe generally come to be the way they are in
an *emergent* fashion. Problem solving starts on smaller scales
focused on specific problems. But, the designers and implementers have
the foresight to make the technology in a plural and modular way, that
allows for the technology itself to be easily adapted in many ways.
Over time the technology indeed is adapted. There was really no
central planning in this, other than the idea of making Arduino
modular, plural (many ways to connect and talk to arduino) and opening
up the design. Plus, Arduino is immediately applicable to a multitude
of specific problems. Indeed if you try to pre-plan a system, the
total system itself will ignore and/or route around your pre-planning
in emergent ways.



>
>
> Michel
>
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