[Discuss] OSHW & Economics

Matt Maier blueback09 at gmail.com
Tue Nov 19 22:09:46 UTC 2013


On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:23 PM, Tux Lab <project.tuxlab at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> 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?
>

I think it's important to keep in mind the difference between the "free"
movement and the "open source" movement. "Free" has a moral agenda; "open
source" does not.

It can get confusing because "open source" is broad enough to encompass
"free" but "free" is too specific to encompass "open source."

So discussions about "free" sometimes get wrapped up under the label "open
source" when they shouldn't.

The "open source" community, in the sense that it excludes the "free"
community, does not have a problem with licensing their work to allow
others to do anything they want with it. That's actually the whole point.
The "free" community, on the other hand, is defined by the fact that they
place restrictions on what other people can do with their work...for moral
reasons.

I think you're viewing this situation through a "free" lens but mistakenly
calling it "open source." The values of the "free" movement aren't all that
popular in the software world, and they are even less popular in the
hardware world, since it's so much harder to do anything for free. "Open
source" is all about solving technical problems, and lowering prices is a
big part of that. Blatantly cloning the trademark of an established product
to trick people into buying a copy is shady, and in as much as it matters
in a global marketplace, it's also illegal.

But it's also inescapable. Community members simply vote with their
wallets, and since the primary motivation is to get on with the work of
solving problems, it's not unusual for them to vote for cheaper knockoffs.

It doesn't actually undermine the goals of the open source community. If
the problem solution is stable, then it's appropriate to mass produce it.
However, mass production usually requires making changes to the design,
which will not be supported by the community if they're not open sourced by
the manufacturer. So, the community will continue chugging along.
Individual inventors might feel slighted, or even taken advantage of, but
"open source" specifically does not provide the same individual protections
that "proprietary" does. The power and protection is based in the
community, not in any one individual.

People who don't understand that are going to get their feelings hurt, but
it's the same as misunderstanding anything else. If someone wants
individual protection they should go get a patent, rather than try to
squeeze personal rights back into "open source" when they were given up on
purpose.


>   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


Well...they probably don't call what they're selling "open source." Even if
they did, the structure of "open source" prevents any attempt to use the
law to stop them. The whole point of "open source" is that the inventor
gives away most of the rights to their intellectual property, including the
right to make money off of it. People who "open source" things shouldn't be
surprised when someone else does exactly the things they were permitted to
do.

Copying the trademark is bad. That's one of the best ways to know where
something came from. So this isn't a defense of that action. But it is a
defense of copying all of the project files, mass producing the product,
and trying to sell it.
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