[p2p-research] decentralizing open source bike production?

[Kevin Carson]

On 9/4/09, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> My suggestion: don't even try to compete in this space, or even
>  compare these prices to what you are doing. An open source bike
>  project could instead compete in the long tail by making a series of
>  many easily modifiable bicycle design cores (plus a standard way to
>  contribute more cores) that people can download and fabricate, and
>  modify/adapt.

Or simply disregard the proprietary companies' patents and build an
open-source bicycle industry through mass customization in localized
small shops.  I.e., build compatible replacement parts (and design
modular accessories) tailored to their proprietary platforms.  Just
make a library of such OS designs freely available on a global level.
 As the cost of small-scale CNC tools continues to implode, backyard
and garage "hobby" metal shops can network on a local level to adopt
modified proprietary designs for their own purposes and disregard the
patents, operating on a small and localized enough scale to be beyond
the corporate producers' radar.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
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Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
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