[Discuss] OSHW & Economics

[alicia]

Here's my 2 cents:


> But the OSHW always have an associated cost and there is no way that a
> small OSHW proyect can compete with an asian manufacturer for example. I
> mean, with the right facilities, any manufacturer could take an OSHW design
> and reproduce at just a small fraction of the costs that the original
> designer had.


I think our tools for manufacture are changing. Slowly, but it is much
easier to fabricate things than it was 3 years ago. Print shops are buying
3D printers, hackerspaces have laser cutters, and some even pic n' place
machines (at least in America). I think change is coming to the way
traditional manufacturers have done business with places like Kickstarter
and more products needing personalization. It might be another 50 years
until the system has changed completely, but I think it is happening.

However this companies are pretty "new", and they sell physical things
> rather than support. But you can find easily on eBay or DX exact copies of
> their products with the same functionality at just a fraction of the cost.
> If we follow the market rules, then the people is going to start choosing
> the lower cost alternatives (because the value of something is how much the
> market is willing to pay for it and not their real manufacturing cost)
> making more hard for this kind of companies survive in the long run unless
> they start to manufacture their products overseas.


The business model of selling goods for money is quite old and well
established. There haven't been any oshw companies go out of business
because someone is making exact copies and I doubt that will happen. The
entire notion of not allowing direct copies, in my opinion, is what patents
are for. Patents allow derivative works, and are published publicly so that
others may learn from them. A major difference between oshw and patents is
the fact that direct copies are allowed in oshw, allowing for a freer
market, innovation and capitalism to foster at whatever pace they chose. I
agree with Matt's sentiments on oshw and individual protection, though as
Matt points out, copying trademarks is shady since those are meant to
protect the consumer and brand. Brand is extraordinarily strong, look at
Apple. Apple sells tablets for $600, while their competitors sell tablets
for $200 that do the same things if not more. People (at least Americans)
do not necessarily pick the cheapest item.


But I'll give you another example of a good side of this: Imagine a third
> world country with income levels less than $100 at month. A simple Arduino
> could cost a third of that income, but a equivalent product manufactured in
> asia (I'm not talking about counterfeits) could cost just $10, that means
> that this versión at a lower cost at the end of the day increases the
> posibilities for the people on this countries to access this kind of
> technology. Making the access to the technology more "democratic".
>

> Yes, but that doesn't benefit the designer.


It may not directly benefit the designer, but in many cases has indirectly
benefited the designer. I think this is a powerful example of why oshw is
important in the world. The internet brought us a global economy but not an
equivalent one. For some areas the best innovation is the economic
innovation. Consider the phrase "The future is already here, it's just not
evenly distributed." (by William Gibson in The Economist) That phrase
implies the problem is not with innovating tech but innovating
distribution, be it financial or geographical that is the real problem to
conquer. I argued in my thesis on the Arduino that one (out of 4) of the
reasons it became popular was economical - it was cheaper than other
microcontrollers on the market, but the technology of microcontrollers
already existed. They made the microcontroller landscape better in more
than one, but the economic factor was definitely one of them.

In terms of making sure oshw is being manufactured in good working
conditions, these are not IP concerns as much as business concerns. Any
company with patented hardware and closed source software can use labor in
acceptable or unacceptable ways, so I don't think the conversation centers
around oshw as much as it does around business and economy. I say this
purely as a thread of logic, not because I don't think stuff should be made
in terrible environments or that we should not discuss it. I am all about
happy shiny people holding hands, and I would and do pay more for products
produced in ways I like, but production lines drawn are not drawn between
open and closed source stuff.

Also thanks for being respectful of other cultures. Be mindful that we have
people world-wide on this list.

Cheers,
Alicia





On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> 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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>
>
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