[p2p-research] why we need open hardware

[Michel Bauwens]

nice contribution from the o-m list:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Allin Kahrl <osokuro at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: Open Source Hardware Summit Debrief
To: michael at michaelshiloh.com, "English Qi Hardware mailing list - support,
developers, use cases and fun" <discussion at lists.en.qi-hardware.com>


When I was a kid the school library was still full of do-science-at-home
books from the three decades prior. These books suggested you could get
really interesting chemicals at the hardware store or pharmacy, and
magnesium filings or spring steel from any local machine shop.

Along with access to a lot of diy-inclined adults, I really grew up with the
impression that knowledge existed to be shared. That was really borne out at
my first serious jobs in the early aughts, manufacturing reproduction hand
tools whose patents had expired before my father was born. Anyone could have
built those products, and we could talk all day about how we did it. It
benefitted our customers enormously to know certain details, and without the
infrastructure or skilled labor we had, nobody really competed with us.

That's the sort of world I want to live in but each day I see the corporate
manufacturing world trying harder and harder to keep a tight grip on their
"IP" and thus keep consumers beholden. I know for a fact that people do not
require exclusivity to do innovative things, but will not be shocked if I
see lobbying to have patents renewed indefinitely in my lifetime.

Open Hardware feels like the best way to create goods which can be fixed,
can be taught, can be extended at the discretion of their owners. In theory,
even if open components are used in proprietary assemblies, the original
openness can never be appropriated. Changes to the open design must be
published, so they don't need to infect their host hardware with openness in
order to provide hooks of understanding for able owners. So I suppose my
interest grows at least partly out of nostalgia.

[allin kahrl]
On Oct 3, 2010 12:08 PM, "Michael Shiloh" <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com>
wrote:
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