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<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:23 PM, Tux Lab <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:project.tuxlab@gmail.com" target="_blank">project.tuxlab@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><br>If the OSHW movement cannot take ownership, either physically of<br>philosophically, of the manufacturing process, then OSHW will be an<br>
exploitation tool for the unscrupulous manufacturers. We've all<br>seen OSHW products coming from non-free countries at half of the cost,<br>complete with the unaltered silkscreen of the original creator who<br>open sourced the design. I've seen the popular reprap RAMPS board<br>
with the exact same Ultimachine logo at less than 20% of the price I<br>paid for at Ultimachine. To me, that is very antithesis of the open<br>source movement. The manufacturer is just using the published<br>gerber file to make a quick buck. Other than saving the consumer<br>
some dollars, how does that benefit the greater open source community?<br></blockquote>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>It can get confusing because "open source" is broad enough to encompass "free" but "free" is too specific to encompass "open source."</div>
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<div>So discussions about "free" sometimes get wrapped up under the label "open source" when they shouldn't.</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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. </div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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. </div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote"> A manufacture who lazily replicates OSHW without taking the time to<br>create their own OSHW derivatives probably doesn't care that much<br>
about their employees or the environment.<br><br>To me, the open source movement has always been about transparency,<br>knowledge sharing, and learning. The actual monetary saving comes<br>from being able to make better decisions by being an informed<br>
consumer. I don't see how OSHW made in non-free countries that<br>does not believe in free speech, the very basis of an open source<br>community, can be called "open source."<br><br><br>John</blockquote>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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. </div>
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