<html><head></head><body>I feel this is treading at the debate FLOSS types had years back, which is free of cost versus freely available (free or libre).<br>
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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. <br>
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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. <br>
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Cameron Adamez<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On September 2, 2014 6:13:53 AM PDT, Joshua Pearce <professor.pearce@gmail.com> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Hi All,<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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? <br /><br />Clearly it is more than your opportunity cost or wage
for one hour...but how much more is the value to humanity?<br /><br />Is
it:<br />(cost to purchase - cost to print) x (number of people
downloading it)?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">or
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">(hourly wage of person needing a test
tube rack) x (number of people using it)?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">or</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">total value of the test tube market -
(cost to print)x (number of racks in the market) ....summed for N
years?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">or
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">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.....</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">or</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0.2in">Is there a better way to do this -
and get to quantification?</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in">Thanks!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">Joshua</p>
<div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Joshua M. Pearce, Ph.D.<br />Associate Professor<br /><a href="http://www.appropedia.org/Category:MOST" target="_blank">The Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Lab</a><span style="padding-right:16px;width:16px;height:16px"></span><br />
Department of Materials Science & Engineering<br />Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering<br />Michigan Technological University<br />601 M&M Building<br />1400 Townsend Drive<br />Houghton, MI 49931-1295<br />906-487-1466<br />
</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://store.elsevier.com/coArticle.jsp?pageid=18200010" target="_blank">Open Source Lab</a><span style="padding-right:16px;width:16px;height:16px"></span><span style="padding-right:16px;width:16px;height:16px"></span></div>
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<p style="margin-top: 2.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; border-bottom: 1px solid #000"></p><pre class="k9mail"><hr /><br />discuss mailing list<br />discuss@lists.oshwa.org<br /><a href="http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss">http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss</a><br /></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>