[Discuss] the significance of oshw

Tue Nov 5 21:33:07 UTC 2013

Hi Catarina!

Almost a year ago I started to become familiar with the concept of the Open
Hardware. Personally I have been an advocate for Open Source Software since
I started using Linux more than 10 years ago.

Here in my country (El Salvador) we were the most industrialized country on
central americas at the end of 60s and begining of 70s, but political
issues and a bloody civil war put a stop to the industries and now we are
lagged behind.

However we still have several technical high-schools were people can learn
electronics, mechanics, mechatronics and even architecture. I graduated
myself from one of this schools. Also, all Universities teach engineering
on several fields but few people have the real opportunity to develop
solutions using their skills, most of them become marketeers of existing
solutions or technical support people in the best of the cases.

>From the begining of the last year I started to write in my blog about
small open-hardware projects and via mailing lists and social networks I
started to communicate with many people that works in the same.

So in the last year I have found a lot of people working around the country
in projects based on Open Hardware solutions, from individuals to schools
and universities. At one point, we thought that could be a great idea to
conform the Open Hardware Community in El Salvador to share experiences and
promote this kind of "philosophy of sharing to create".

What we found after that was a lot of people working everywhere in the
country telling us: "We tought that we were alone on this", but you see the
spark on their eyes when you tell them that they are not alone but part of
a community that can help them to materialize their ideas.

For me, the Open Source Hardware it's an incredible oportunity to show the
world that this country still has a lot of potential and has people capable
of create, invent and develop solutions to the problems, this empowers the
feeling on the people that we are not just a consumist country with a lot
of social problems but a place were we can create and solve problems by
ourselfs.

The next step is to tell the people that they need to merchandise their
ideas (in a good way). There is a lot of incredible projects on the schools
and universities collecting dust that could became live if the people uses
Internet to collaborate and show to the world what they are capable of.

>From CNCs and 3D-Printers built from recycled parts to automatization
systems for the industry you'll be surprised of all the things that the
people is doing here.

As a community our main idea is to give the people the tools so they can
share and colaborate with OSHW projecs around the world. Now we are just
starting with this but we hope that if we acomplish this, there is going to
be a complete change of mentality of being a "consumist" country and become
real "producers".

As Emilio Said in another reply we would be happy to share the experiences
of the people here. Emilio can act as a translator jajajaja :)

Regards,
Mario.
(Member of the OpenHardware Community in El Salvador)

P.D.: Sorry for my bad english If something needs clarification please tell
me.

On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Emilio Velis <contacto at emiliovelis.com>wrote:

> This is just an idea, and you're free to dismiss it, but it would be nice
> to have a space with people's (or group's) profiles and their testimonial.
> From our side (as an emerging group of Open Hardware from El Salvador)
> sharing testimonials from people that don't speak English and would've
> never thought to be connected globally in this mindset would be a very nice
> experience.
> El nov 5, 2013 2:59 p.m., "Catarina Mota" <catarina at openmaterials.org>
> escribió:
>
>> Absolutely, whatever people prefer! There can even be multiple ways to
>> contribute (to the list, to me, on a google doc, etherpad, etc.) - as long
>> as I know what all the channels are, I can pull the information into an
>> OSHWA page.
>>
>> Here's a google doc for those who prefer it:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K0JyOKWbldWtXXpqhAOTsGQ23NmEtQit6bDlLLTbFhs/edit?usp=sharing
>>
>> But I do think that it's good to keep them as individual testimonials to
>> capture more diversity of perspectives. If, at one point, anyone wants to
>> take a stab at summarizing it all that would be awesome too.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Emilio Velis <contacto at emiliovelis.com>wrote:
>>
>>> We could work an Etherpad or Google Docs document to make it
>>> collaborative.
>>> El nov 5, 2013 2:20 p.m., "Catarina Mota" <catarina at openmaterials.org>
>>> escribió:
>>>
>>>  Awesome!
>>>>
>>>> Michael: you can either just post your testimonial on this thread, or
>>>> email it directly to me if you prefer.
>>>>
>>>> Gabby: that's a great idea! Same thing: either send to the list or to
>>>> me and I'll start a page on oshwa.org (if no one has objections to
>>>> that).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 3:14 PM, gabriella levine <
>>>> gabriella.levine at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I know also there have been a number of amazing and inspirational
>>>>> talks about the importance of OSHW, none of which are archived in one spot
>>>>> - would this be such a place for this , also?
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes I agree that this could be cool and I'm definitely interested. I
>>>>> can get you a few lines of text, video, and photos if that would work.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Catarina Mota <
>>>>> catarinamfmota at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been thinking about the real significance of open source
>>>>>> hardware. We spend a lot time discussing how to do OSHW right. We usually
>>>>>> explain its advantages by saying that it allows people to copy, modify, and
>>>>>> transform hardware, which leads to faster development and better
>>>>>> technologies. But I think there is more to it than that. In some recent
>>>>>> conversations, a few people mentioned the sense of empowerment and
>>>>>> liberation that comes from creating and modifying technologies, which makes
>>>>>> me think that there are deeper cultural implications here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I was thinking that it would be nice to compile a series of
>>>>>> testimonials about what people perceive as the personal, practical,
>>>>>> political, cultural, social or economic advantages and disadvantages of
>>>>>> open source hardware.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If OSHWA agrees, we can create a page for these testimonials/opinions
>>>>>> on oshwa.org. Or, if for any reason, that is problematic, I can find
>>>>>> another place to publish them. I just think that it's important to put a
>>>>>> more human face on our outreach efforts (rather than just publishing
>>>>>> technical and legal information).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does anyone want to contribute? There's no structure, just whatever
>>>>>> you want to say about this topic. If you post your opinions on this list I
>>>>>> can collect, compile and publish them (on oshwa.org or somewhere
>>>>>> else). Hopefully this can also trigger an interesting discussion :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Catarina
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> discuss mailing list
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ----------*RECENT & UPCOMING*-----------------------
>>>>> ---------------------------------
>>>>> portfolio: gabriellalevine.com
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>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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