
Open-Source Seeds - void_nill
https://www.opensourceseeds.org/en/home
======
kashyapc
Also, related:
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/)

From their About page:

 _We’re developing open source industrial machines that can be made for a
fraction of commercial costs, and sharing our designs online for free. The
goal of Open Source Ecology is to create an open source economy. [...]

OSE (Open Source Ecology) is currently developing a set of open source
blueprints for the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a set of the 50
most important machines that it takes for modern life to exist – everything
from a tractor, to an oven, to a circuit maker. In the process of creating the
GVCS, OSE intends to develop a modular, scalable platform for documenting and
developing open source, libre hardware – including blueprints for both
physical artifacts and for related open enterprises.

The current practical implementation of the GVCS is a life size LEGO set of
powerful, self-replicating production tools for distributed production. The
Set includes fabrication and automated machines that make other machines.
Through the GVCS, OSE intends to build not individual machines – but machine
construction systems that can be used to build any machine whatsoever. Because
new machines can be built from existing machines, the GVCS is intended to be a
kernel for building infrastructures of modern civilization._

~~~
kerkeslager
That's a cool idea, but it suffers from the same problem that OLPC suffers
from[1]: it's a lot of dreams and not a lot of substance.

Looking at their Machine Index[2], there are 50 machines.

Some of these are obviously _not_ "important machines that it takes for modern
life to exist": a 3D Scanner[3], for example, is still an immature technology
at best, and is ultimately useless without a computer, which isn't one of the
machines (the same criticism applies to all their CNC machines). Similarly,
the design for the car[4] is purely aesthetic without any concern for
pragmatics--the exterior is covered in futuristic-looking curves that will
make manufacturing more difficult, but it's unclear whether any design time
has been spent on the actual, difficult parts of making a car work, things
like the differential[5] which will be needed regardless of whether the car is
gas-powered or electric (I'll point out that whether the car is gas-powered or
electric is unclear from the designs).

Meanwhile, they're missing a lathe: it's boring technology, but I'm not sure
how they're planning to make bolts to bolt together their machines without a
lathe. Think of a "boring" tool you have in your house and it's probably not
there: saws, drills, sanders are all missing. If you can't build a drill or a
saw, I question whether you're ready to build a truck[6] or an industrial
robot[7] (which again, won't work without a computer).

And if these are actually open source, I certainly can't find the source. All
I see are PNGs. Their GitHub[8] contains mostly designs for parts of a 3D
printer, which isn't one of the machines listed, and is even less important to
modern life existing than any of the machines listed.

I'd be able to forgive _everything_ I've said if there was even _one_ working
design on their site, but even simplest things like the Electric
Motor/Generator[9] don't even have the descriptions filled out. If you wanted
to build an electric motor/generator, you'd find more useful information on
Wikipedia or YouTube.

Their most fleshed-out project seems to be the MicroHouse[10] which is,
incidentally, not a machine. This means it doesn't require the engineering
that the other projects do (which is probably why it's more fleshed out) but
it also means that it isn't really useful: people have been figuring out how
to build shelters since prehistory, from local materials rather than the
super-cool-ultra-modern-eco-sustainable materials they're proposing. And this
project suffers from the same problems as their overall projects: it has three
sources of electricity but no apparent reference to plumbing.

I hate to be so negative about all this, but I fear that wildly unfocused
projects like this take money and expertise away from projects with real
potential and direction. Ideas are a dime a dozen: implementation is much more
rare.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21046984](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21046984)

[2] [https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-
index/#p...](https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/gvcs-machine-
index/#prettyPhoto\[portfolio\]/2/)

[3]
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/3d-scanner-2/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/3d-scanner-2/)

[4]
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/car/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/car/)

[5]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_dev...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_\(mechanical_device\))

[6]
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/truck/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/truck/)

[7] [https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/industrial-
robot...](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/industrial-robot/)

[8]
[https://github.com/OpenSourceEcology](https://github.com/OpenSourceEcology)

[9] [https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/electric-
motorge...](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/electric-
motorgenerator/)

[10]
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/microhouse/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/microhouse/)

~~~
CapitalistCartr
The essential elements of building civilization involve making stuff by hand.
You can't build "machine construction systems that can be used to build any
machine whatsoever" unless and until you _know_ how to make those machines. If
_you_ can't make a Jacquard loom or an electric motor, your machine sure can't
either.

My list of essential machines are the ones I'd need:

Metalworking: before you can make cars and transistors, you have to get your
hands dirty, make steel and machine gears.

First, Lathe. kerkeslager is right, it's the foundation tool of machining.

2: Blacksmith's forge. You can make a lot of useful starting tools with one.
Just slow.

3: Steam engine. Even a crappy one is a game changer.

4: Bessemer furnace, for larger scale. It was the backbone of the Industrial
Revolution.

5: Milling machine. You can make about anything, including basic gears.

Agriculture

1: Combine

2: Cotton gin

Misc

1: Windmill

2: Electric motor

3: Battery.

4: Internal Combustion engine

5: Printing Press

6: Waterwheel. (But I live in Florida.)

7: Jacquard loom

------
rmason
Most of what you'd call open source seed are varieties produced through
university research programs. Independent seed farmers reproduce and sell the
seed in commercial level quantities.

I think this license is potentially important. There are commercial seed
companies taking these public varieties, renaming them and selling them as
their own product. There is nothing technically wrong with that.

However where it gets sticky is where they place legal demands on the farmer
buying and planting the seed. If the open source license prohibited them from
doing that it would be a very good thing.

If somewhere on the bag they had to put the public name the university
assigned that would help. Farmers sometimes plant seed from two different
companies and think they're spreading diversity risk when in fact they're
planting the same variety!

~~~
wildduck
>However where it gets sticky is where they place legal demands on the farmer
buying and planting the seed. If the open source license prohibited them from
doing that it would be a very good thing.

Maybe something like GPL for seeds?

------
wcchandler
I’m a hemp farmer. I definitely believe we need some kind of system like this
to prevent corporations from monopolizing certain phenotypes. Sadly, I can’t
see this working very well in practice for our industry. Cultivars already go
to great lengths to protect their unique strains. Which is unfortunate for a
lot of research on the endocannibinoid system.

------
kube-system
I'm not sure 'open source' is a very good qualifier to use in the name of this
project. I read the license, and I'm not seeing anything analogous to
'source'. It doesn't appear that any details about the development of the seed
has to be shared along with the rights to use the seed.

If I'm not mistaken here, this just looks like a copyleft license, which is a
totally separate concern from 'open source'.

~~~
GenghisSean
I agree. I think they used the term 'open source' in reference to the freedoms
that open source licenses often afford. I'm sure RMS doesn't like the
inclusion of this sentence.

> The rules of open source were first introduced by computer scientists in the
> GNU Manifesto and lead to development of the General Public Licence (GPL)
> and Creative Commons Licence, which are often used instead of copyright.

------
tnjm
The problem with this is that there's no legal mechanism to enforce it besides
(perhaps!) contract law.

If an entity receives the seeds without the contract attached, it can hardly
be considered to have agreed to the terms. The providing party may be in
breach of contract, but there's no way to bind the receiving entity. A single
'rogue' link in the chain makes it all meaningless.

Of course, a variety would have to be truly spectacular for any company to
take the effort and PR risk to get involved in that kind of shenanigans, so
this approach may have some practical, if not legal, efficacy.

Ironically, a potentially stronger way to enforce the license terms would be
to... patent the varieties. It's a quagmire of varying rules internationally,
though, and there are some exemptions for the use of protected varieties in
further breeding of varieties that could then be protected and subject to less
'free' terms. Plants won't ever be subject to the GPL.

I'm very sympathetic to the project's aims, but even on a purely ethical basis
there is room for argument. If we want more plant varieties to be produced to
tackle humanity's next challenges (and... we do), should we not be encouraging
companies to make very significant, long-term investments in breeding efforts?
It's hard to see how that can happen without some kind of time- and scope-
limited intellectual property rights, even if the systems we have now aren't
ideal.

~~~
zeckalpha
What aspects make the contract unenforceable? It seems to meet the legal
requirements.

~~~
tnjm
It's only enforcable against the parties to the contract. If a party receiving
the seeds then passes them (against the terms of the contract) to another
entity without the contract attached, that ultimately-receiving entity has not
accepted the contract and therefore isn't bound by it.

An action can be taken against the initial party for breach of contract, of
course, for whatever good that does, but that the seeds are now free of the
contractual obligations.

------
Mikeb85
The fact seeds can even be patented is absurd. Nice to see others agree.

------
imvetri
Do they patent something which is available naturally ?

~~~
Someone
Define “naturally”. People can spend decades breeding and crossing plants to
optimize various properties, and such ‘products’ can get legal protection. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_breeders%27_rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_breeders%27_rights)

~~~
imvetri
Nice. But instead of cleaning up licence and all digital protection looks like
we are adding more to it.

~~~
imvetri
Because all these grip the commercialization concept very strong. If we have
to break the system we cannot do by adding another gate.

This is something which I wanted to convey by mentioning naturally.

Living beings shouldn't be tied up or held in control by means of money and
other concepts.

Open source seeding I misunderstood than what it actually means. Sorry.

------
kaelig
Related, in French: [https://www.letelegramme.fr/finistere/morlaix/roscoff-
une-ma...](https://www.letelegramme.fr/finistere/morlaix/roscoff-une-maison-
pour-les-semences-26-09-2018-12090211.php)

------
shmerl
It's bizarre there is a need to come up with "open source" seeds, to
counteract the insanity of "patented" seeds. But I guess until patents on
genes will be forbidden for good, it's necessary.

------
goda90
>Three requirements have to be met for the licensing: > > The variety must be
new.

I'm curious, what's the legal status of existing varieties that aren't
patented?

~~~
flyingfences
Patents require novelty - long-standing varieties are therefore not subject to
patenting.

------
zozbot234
Is this related to the OpenAg thing that was discussed on HN earlier? Because
as I recall, there were quite a few doubts about how that sort of thing would
work.

------
woliveirajr
I think I was the only one who thought about pseudo RNG and some distributed
seeds to use.

------
sungju1203
this website is very sensitive on scroll event!

~~~
fermenflo
Seriously. I can't imagine the rationale behind it being so sensitive and
acceleration-packed.

