[Discuss] OSHW & Economics

Tux Lab project.tuxlab at gmail.com
Tue Nov 19 21:23:55 UTC 2013


As someone who uses open source software almost exclusively, believes
strongly in the open source philosophy, and generally tries to avoid
products made in non-free countries, I believe that for the OSHW to
stay true to its open source principles, the open source community
must have either physical or philosophical ownership of the
manufacturing process.   Philosophical ownership as in having a
transparent manufacturing process for everyone to see and empowering
the assembly line workers with the knowledge of how the products were
designed.

The biggest difference between OSSW and OSHW is the required capital
cost.  There's almost an inverse relationship between the two.    Mass
production brought down the cost of hardware that lowers the entry
barrier for OSSW but raises the barrier for OSHW due to the increased
capital cost for mass production equipment.    In the old days of
through hole soldering, a few people can probably get together and
build price competitive electronics but these days I think a
rudimentary pick and place assembly line is the bare minimum to be
price competitive.    The cheapest system is probably a few ten
thousands usd.

If the OSHW movement cannot take ownership, either physically of
philosophically, of the manufacturing process, then OSHW will be an
exploitation tool for the unscrupulous manufacturers.    We've all
seen OSHW products coming from non-free countries at half of the cost,
complete with the unaltered silkscreen of the original creator who
open sourced the design.   I've seen the popular reprap RAMPS board
with the exact same Ultimachine logo at less than 20% of the price I
paid for at Ultimachine.  To me, that is very antithesis of the open
source movement.    The manufacturer is just using the published
gerber file to make a quick buck.   Other than saving the consumer
some dollars, how does that benefit the greater open source community?
  A manufacture who lazily replicates OSHW without taking the time to
create their own OSHW derivatives probably doesn't care that much
about their employees or the environment.

To me, the open source movement has always been about transparency,
knowledge sharing, and learning.   The actual monetary saving comes
from being able to make better decisions by being an informed
consumer.     I don't see how OSHW made in non-free countries that
does not believe in free speech, the very basis of an open source
community, can be called "open source."


John


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