Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models (opensource.com) [LWN.net]

Over at opensource.com, Ruth Suehle reports on the Open Hardware Summit, which was recently held in New York. At the summit, the Open Source Hardware Association was officially launched and various ideas about open hardware business strategies were discussed. "Many in the audience were waiting for the afternoon session that included Bre Pettis, co-founder and CEO of MakerBot, creators of a popular open source 3D printer. Earlier in the week, the company announced its latest product, the Replicator 2 3D printer. At the same time, Pettis announced to much controversy, 'For the Replicator 2, we will not share the way the physical machine is designed or our GUI because we don’t think carbon-copy cloning is acceptable and carbon-copy clones undermine our ability to pay people to do development.'"

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Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models (opensource.com)

Posted Oct 6, 2012 4:02 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

So will they be stopping people using their printers to, say, print Lego blocks? Or is the whole "you aren't allowed to clone things because it stops people making money to fund development" something for their products, but others' are open season?

Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models (opensource.com)

Posted Oct 6, 2012 8:47 UTC (Sat) by kragil (subscriber, #34373) [Link]

Pettis is not a fully developed character, so it doesn't really matter what he says. A few months ago he said this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54X28qSbKf4

Recursive humor

Posted Oct 7, 2012 14:00 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I hope the full sarcasm of this statement is not restricted to some elite of Free software enthusiasts. Also, I think they just opened the door to being sued by all kinds of manufacturers of physical goods who agree with them and "don’t think carbon-copy cloning is acceptable".

Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models (opensource.com)

Posted Oct 7, 2012 18:00 UTC (Sun) by mgross (subscriber, #38112) [Link]

I find this all pretty sad. The fact is its hard and expensive to produce quality products in quantity for customers. This very fact is what gives them a business in the first place.

The HW design and technology in a lot (all?) of the open hardware products is really nothing someone partially skilled in the art can't reverse engineer or implement independently based on looking at a picture.

Heck, its the SW that is the long poll on these projects anyway.

What are they protecting with this change in behaviour? Time to Market for knock off clone? If a competitor has the engineering resources to produce a cloned product in quantity then, they have the ability to reverse engineer or otherwise mimic whatever IP they are holding back in a very short amount of time.

I don't like this change is tone.

Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models (opensource.com)

Posted Oct 8, 2012 19:36 UTC (Mon) by wmf (guest, #33791) [Link]

It looks like another BitKeeper. When a company is founded "to help the community and make money" it means "the source code is going away at the first sign of trouble". I don't really blame them; short-term self-preservation is a hard instinct to overcome.

RepRap

Posted Oct 6, 2012 22:05 UTC (Sat) by johnny (guest, #10110) [Link]

Makes me glad I ordered a RepRapPro Mendel kit, and not a Makerbot. Dr Adrian Bowyer, RepRap founder, doesn't strike me as the kind of person who goes closed-source as soon as it seems profitable.