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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Matt Maier <<a href="mailto:blueback09@gmail.com">blueback09@gmail.com</a>> <b><<a href="mailto:discuss@lists.oshwa.org">discuss@lists.oshwa.org</a>> schreibt:</b></font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Yeah, I don't see how strongly capitalized enterprises out-competing civic organizations (IE: weakly capitalized enterprises) is suddenly a new thing just because the word "open" is now popular. </font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">maybe things are a bit different if we start understanding the term "out-cooperating" (coined by Stefan Meretz from Berlin)</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">In fact the small size of O(S)H businesses could be a competitive advantage, lots of dead burden avoided.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">This will come through by network effects. Then the cooperative division of labor (of course maily on partipative resources) might be a leverage.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Would be interesting to calculate these effects.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">It seems to me the whole point of open source is that everyone gets to do whatever they want with things, provided they don't limit anyone else's ability to do whatever they want. By definition some people using the same thing will be using it for contradictory purposes. That's not a problem with openness that's just business as usual.</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Right, but one thing they can be used for is increase autonomy and create decentralized capacities.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">I for myself am working on a similar field as OSE (Open Source Ecology), we are discussing how to bring rural communities to bloom, something that das been in constant decay for more than decades.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">I feel O(S)HW is really good for villages and decentralisation.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><span style="background-color:#d0d0d0;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">The benefit that openness brings is that it lowers the barriers to participation, which increases diversity. That means everybody gets more of what they want. But, that means while you are getting yours, well, your perceived enemies are also getting theirs. At least, from a technology perspective. The socio-political issues are more zero-sum.</font></span></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Well, if we are going to build exactly the same technology, why do it after all?</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">I think that each piece of proprietary hardware is a poison - loaded trap nowadays, constructed for creating dependent costomers. (Industry used to be progressive, but today most technical features are like selling prosthesis to the amputated. Consider non-modularity, building for obsolescence etc.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">So even from that point there is a difference.</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">And if you put into perspective the possibilities to decentralize, the socio-political issues might be staggering....</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">just a remark.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Franz</font></div>
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