[p2p-research] an update on the open hardware roadmap

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks Eric for these further elaborations to
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/assessing-the-open-hardware-roadmap/2010/10/01

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 4:36 AM, Eric Hunting <erichunting at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> If you can put full time effort into this, that will be something of a
> breakthrough by itself. I don't think any of the other efforts at this type
> of project can, as yet, boast being able to pursue it as a day job. But you
> will definitely need to work out a definitive structure for information
> before there is a lot of other user support. It's good that you have an open
> mind about this and offer visitors easy access and a dumping ground for
> submissions but odds are that, until your structure is defined and the basic
> model for the kinds of information you're collecting is clear, few will know
> what to contribute but generalized suggestions. The problem is that this
> concept itself has very many potential ways of being implemented and the
> random contributor is looking at a blank slate. It's really not very clear
> what sort of information you're asking the world for. As someone who has put
> some study into this concept for some time, looking at your intro and topic
> outline as it is at the moment, it looks to myself as though you're trying
> to crowdsource a white paper. I'm probably misinterpreting, but that's sort
> of how this reads to me because there isn't a structured breakdown into a
> set of specific knowledge -specific techniques, technologies, projects.
> Imagine the technology trees of a civilization-building game. Topics are
> still very generalized. So is this intended to be a structured archive of
> open source knowledge or rather a directory of the 'whole Maker thing' and
> who is doing what work where with an analysis of the likely bottlenecks?
> Have I, perhaps, misinterpreted the objective of the project?
>
> A while ago Michel's P2P Foundation wiki site tried setting up a rough
> catalog of open source technology and I went at this with a breakdown into a
> hierarchy of basic fabrication methods where, for each category, you could
> list projects, books, and other media that might be available for it. So you
> had a breakdown into fabrication methods/techniques/tools/crafts, building
> systems (modular or otherwise), refined materials/production stocks (wood,
> engineered lumber, metals, plastics, glass, ceramic, composites,
> metamaterials), resource utilization (mining, refining, agriculture,
> horticulture, husbandry, mariculture, algaeculture, etc.), systems/platforms
> (ie, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, nuclear
> chemistry, bioengineering, nanotechnology, mechanical, pneumatic, plumbing,
> optics, photonics, electrical, electronic, digital, MEMS, communications,
> software operating systems, software development environments, languages),
> energy technologies, etc. These have a certain correspondence to the
> hierarchy of engineering disciplines -although the traditional Industrial
> Age categories tend to be over-specialized and simplistic because of an
> attempt to parallel the example of the scientific/academic disciplines.
> (Victorians had a clockwork mentality about this and that's why people in
> nanotechnology have such a hard time today) My off-the-cuff breakdown at the
> time didn't go quite as deep as all this as the current open source field
> for this stuff is still rudimentary -but, hell, we've got open source ATMs
> and DIY microfluidic systems now. Pretty soon kids will start mucking around
> with nuclear isomers and scaring the old white men again...
>
> Above this level -which that catalog didn't get into because we were
> focusing on open manufacturing itself- is specific products/artifacts and
> designs for them. This was the level where my earlier Open Source Everything
> proposal was. This is where things like Make magazine and Instructibles are.
> Recipes for things. At that level you have your tree of larger 'industry'
> classifications; domestics, health/medical, housing and architecture,
> automotive and other ground transportation, marine transportation, marine
> architecture, aerospace transportation, aerospace architecture, telecom,
> computers/IT, energy products, and all the other stuff that, in some way or
> another, ends up as a discrete artifact/product rather than a technique used
> in production. The state of the underlying knowledgebase of technique is the
> fundamental barrier to the development of products at this level. Right now
> this is a granite rock barrier because contemporary western culture has a
> critical industrial illiteracy problem due to overspecialization of
> education and runaway patent mania. So much of what we see in the open
> source hardware venue here is rooted in reverse-engineering as a way of
> using work on products as a means to cultivate the lower level knowledge of
> technique. But we have no good method of structuring and disseminating that
> knowledge so it's hard to distinguish from the specific recipes for things.
>
> Then you have the science tree, which is about research rather then
> production and underlies the technology tree. You have a catalog of research
> tools, techniques, and methodologies that are organized in a hierarchy
> paralleling the classic scientific disciplines. Medicine would be a peculiar
> branch here where research technique carries over into 'practice' as a
> 'treatment'. It doesn't produce goods. It intervenes in the
> failures/maintenance of the human body as a service to society.
>
> One could also argue for a tree for the arts as well, which parallels the
> style of organization of the science tree while linking into the technology
> and science trees. Art, science, and engineering are all linked. Stage
> magicians are some of the best engineers.
>
> You see, when I think of an open technology knowledgebase I'm thinking
> about a structured way of incrementally organizing pretty much all of human
> technological knowledge as its artificial enclosures of professional and
> corporate propriety are incrementally stripped away and a natural hierarchy
> that relates them to each other is cultivated. I think we should see science
> and technology in the way historian James Burke does. It's not a bunch of
> separate things. It's a network. And one of the profound things about the
> general open technology movement is the way it brings forth this sort of
> Grand Unification of human knowledge as the patents, diplomas, and other
> hold-overs of medieval guild mentality go in the trash and stop being a
> barrier to cross-communication and cross-fertilization. As I noted earlier,
> this is how I envision the Singularity. It's not some fanciful New Age thing
> or about people plugging their brains into robots. It's when the combination
> of the Internet, the social movement against expanding intellectual
> property, and the quest for automation (the transcription of human to
> machine knowledge) combine to bring Metcalf's Law into full effect on the
> totality of technological knowledge.
>
> Eric Hunting
> erichunting at gmail.com
>
>
>
> On Sep 30, 2010, at 12:32 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Topic: [OHANDA] Fwd: [ox-en] Open Hardware Roadmap
> > James Barkley <james.barkley at gmail.com> Sep 29 06:39AM -0400 ^
> >
> > Just a few notes on the ohroadmap.org website:
> >
> > > The Table Of Contents sounds ambitious:
> > > http://www.ohroadmap.org/table-of-contents
> >
> > > but all the respective pages are empty.
> >
> > Yes, but over the next 9 months Sam and I have committed funding for us
> to
> > build out this roadmap in its entirety as part of our day jobs. Also,
> anyone
> > can register on the wiki (username, email, and password are all that's
> > required) and make edits.
> >
> > We've also provided a "dumping ground" page (
> > http://www.ohroadmap.org/dumping-ground) where people can just spew
> freeform
> > and we'll go back later and structure and incorporate this information
> into
> > the main body of content.
> >
> > -jb
> >
> > --
> > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
> >
> > Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
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> >
> > Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
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> >
> > Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>


-- 
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