Open Source Reality

I don't know about you guys, but I am pretty excited to be assigned to the openness group. If you couldn't tell from my thesis post, I think openness is a grand idea. I don't think it's necessarily a good idea in all cases, but I think it has the potential to bring about some very big changes, albeit over a long period of time. I'd like to expound on an example I shared earlier in a comment: the Arduino manufacturer.

In class we often talk about open-source government and software. Most open source projects are non-profits, or in rare cases for profits (like Mozilla Co.) However, I don't think we've yet discussed how open-source is manifested into the more physical world- like manufacturing for instance. It doesn't really make economic sense to have an open-source manufacturing plan. That doesn't stop Arduino, though.

we release all of the original design files (Eagle CAD) for the Arduino hardware. These files are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, which allows for both personal and commercial derivative works, as long as they credit Arduino and release their designs under the same license.

Basically, anyone can recreate or change the board and sell it, including competing manufacturers (they only have to pay royalties of they use the Arduino name). Arduino is still around, so they're obviously doing something right. One thing that is clear from their model, though, is the one thing they aren't doing- worrying about profits. The purpose of most hardware companies, and arguably every company, is to pull a profit (because if they didn't, they would either cease to exist, or become a charity). However, The purpose of Arduino isn't to maintain its existance. It is to provide a programming board. Because the creators don't care who makes it, they make it open so that anyone can produce the board. If they go out of business, it will be because someone else is manufacturing a similar or superior board in a better way. Thus their product can be perpetuated beyond the original manufacturers, in the same way those dumb facebook memes are perpetuated beyond their original websites. And the best part is, whenever anyone improves the boards design, the improvements are open to be implemented by everyone, including Arduino. So it looks like open-source manufacturing isn't too bad of an idea after all. Maybe we'll see some application of it in other industries in the not-so-distant future. What do you think?