[Discuss] the significance of oshw

Thu Nov 7 05:43:47 UTC 2013

I use Debian because of it's community philosophy but what worries me about
oshw is that manufacturing is often concentrated in countries whose
government does not embrace the concept of freedom, countries with far
worst records than the US.   I see blatant ripoffs of popular oshw hardware
where they don't even bother to alter the silkscreen stencil.

Should there be a standard in oshw manufacturing?   In the open source
spirit we can't exclude anyone, but is there anyway to formulate a
voluntary guideline on how oshw are manufactured.   Every country has
different labor laws but I think at the very least, the workers should know
that they are working on oshw products and know about the open source
concept.   They should know that there exist an open source community that
is willing to share its knowledge with everyone regardless of ethnicity,
gender, or religious background.   Knowledge if free.   Sort of like how
minimum wage and basic worker rights must be posted in a typical US
workplace.

I grew up watching the yearly congressional battle over renewing China's
MFN, Most Favored Nation trade status.   After WTO, MFN is a thing of the
past.   Oddly, without that yearly human rights review of others, US
government seems to have lost the ability for self-reflection as well.

On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 12:56 PM, alicia <amgibb at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think OSHWA's a great spot for testimonials - we can put it under the
> Research tab?
>
> *[I'm really nervous I might sound like a jerk with this next statement,
> but I'm going to say it anyway] *As an American, I think I've been around
> capitalistic thinking for so long, it's hard for me to think outside of the
> standard reasons you listed. But I would very much like to hear Eric Pan's
> thoughts on this, or other people coming from different cultures, but
> especially China, because as I've had more and more conversations with Eric
> and other folks too, it strikes me that (possibly due to not having patent
> law until 1984) Chinese folks have a default mindset on sharing rather than
> the default mindset American's have on protecting. And apologies for making
> broad statements, there are people in both nations that have opposite views
> too. But I've started to go on a bit of a soapbox when I hear the mindset
> American's have of "China ripping stuff off" and I think its a vast
> misunderstanding of cultural norms, and that China has been more closely
> tied to doing things in an open source fashion for a greater part of
> history, and that American's get taught to stop sharing after kindergarten.
> (I have slides on oshw and kindergarten too<http://www.slideshare.net/aliciagibb/alicia-gibb>.
> There's a talk on it as well, but you can't see the pictures in the video.)
>
> Getting back to your question though, I love to see and hear about people
> using things differently than I would have (very much linked to the hacker
> mindset) - discovering how people use hardware differently than oneself is
> extremely powerful education and mind-opening. I think kids are great at
> this, a one year old who hasn't had a cupcake before, thinks of eating a
> cupcake very differently that you or I, scale that up to building with
> Legos, using electronics, ignoring physics, etc. <-- That's also not
> specific to oshw, but oshw helps when you can make the way YOU want to use
> hardware a reality rather than conforming to a business / culture's way of
> using hardware.
>
> Alicia
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Catarina Mota <catarina at openmaterials.org>wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
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