[Discuss] Economic value of OSH work

Sat Sep 6 15:51:45 UTC 2014

Thank you to everyone with your good suggestions, references and thoughts.

I have a much better understanding now and you brought up some interesting
points (which I will attribute)  I had not considered and now will include
in the paper in order to make an economic case for government funding of
FOSH development.

The paper in the works - I will share with you when I have finished running
all the numbers and it is ready.

Thank you,
Joshua

Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
The Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Lab
<http://www.appropedia.org/Category:MOST>
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University
601 M&M Building
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
906-487-1466

Open Source Lab <http://store.elsevier.com/coArticle.jsp?pageid=18200010>

On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 8:00 AM, <discuss-request at lists.oshwa.org> wrote:

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>    1. Re: Economic value of OSH work (Harris Kyriakou)
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 18:36:59 -0400
> From: Harris Kyriakou <ckyriako at stevens.edu>
> To: The Open Source Hardware Association Discussion List
>         <discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Economic value of OSH work
> Message-ID:
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>
> Hello all,
>
> I agree that Joshua's question is very interesting and one that has been at
> the back of many heads.
>
> Shane Greenstein and Frank Nagle recently published a paper on the economic
> contribution of Apache, which would probably be a good start (attached).
>
> They also discuss about measuring attribution. If I was writing a paper on
> the economic value OSH work (or just trying to calculate it), I would
> probably start by building upon this model and perhaps incorporating some
> of the differences that hardware may have. Emilio had some really
> interesting points and the links by Matt, Andrew and Gerrit might help in
> finding some common ground.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Best,
> Harris
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Gerrit Niezen <gerrit.niezen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > This reminds me of the Fairphone project - not open source hardware - but
> > very open in their costs and supply chain for building a smartphone using
> > conflict-free materials. For example, here is a .pdf (
> >
> http://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Fairphone_Cost_Breakdown_and_Key_Sept2013.pdf
> )
> > detailing the complete cost breakdown of the first Fairphone.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > Gerrit Niezen
> >
> > On 3 Sep 2014, at 18:26, Cameron Adamez <cameron at suspectdevices.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > I feel this is treading at the debate FLOSS types had years back, which
> is
> > free of cost versus freely available (free or libre).
> >
> > There are other costs that aren't included but should be if we want to
> > look at this holistically: shipping costs, costs to assembly workers,
> costs
> > to mine and reclaim materials, costs to ecosystems from those materials,
> > costs to those who are using the finished product (or being used by the
> > finish product). These have real monitary impact in local economies.
> >
> > If we're talking about design only, for the purpose of funding designers,
> > I would get data on market rates, as long as it's at or above the living
> > wage in your area.
> >
> > Cameron Adamez
> >
> > On September 2, 2014 6:13:53 AM PDT, Joshua Pearce <
> > professor.pearce at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> I know that many of you has been thinking about how to determine the
> >> value of OSH work. Are you aware of any methods to calculate absolute
> value
> >> in real economic terms?
> >>
> >> For example if you spend an hour of your time making an OpenSCAD file
> for
> >> a parametric test tube rack and put it in the public domain - and then
> for
> >> the rest of time anyone can download the file, customize the rack for
> their
> >> needs and print it for the cost of materials and a tiny amount of
> >> electricity. How much is that gift worth?
> >>
> >> Clearly it is more than your opportunity cost or wage for one hour...but
> >> how much more is the value to humanity?
> >>
> >> Is it:
> >> (cost to purchase - cost to print) x (number of people downloading it)?
> >>
> >> or
> >>
> >> (hourly wage of person needing a test tube rack) x (number of people
> >> using it)?
> >>
> >> or
> >>
> >> total value of the test tube market - (cost to print)x (number of racks
> >> in the market) ....summed for N years?
> >>
> >> or
> >>
> >> As the cost of test tube racks has now decreased it is the total value
> of
> >> the current market + a bonus for expanding future use because of lower
> >> costs + some kind of educational bonus because more schools can afford
> them
> >> + some fraction of future discoveries made possible because now part of
> the
> >> expense of doing science was decreased.....
> >>
> >> or
> >>
> >> Is there a better way to do this - and get to quantification?
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> Joshua
> >> Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D.
> >> Associate Professor
> >> The Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Lab
> >> <http://www.appropedia.org/Category:MOST>
> >> Department of Materials Science & Engineering
> >> Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
> >> Michigan Technological University
> >> 601 M&M Building
> >> 1400 Townsend Drive
> >> Houghton, MI 49931-1295
> >> 906-487-1466
> >>
> >> Open Source Lab <
> http://store.elsevier.com/coArticle.jsp?pageid=18200010>
> >>
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