
The stealthy industrial revolution already underway in open source hardware - crashdev
http://www.crashdev.com/2013/08/the-stealthy-industrial-revolution.html
======
kqr2
Actually these kinds of practices have been used by the Chinese "shanzhai" for
a while to quickly churn out products. They appear to have their own internal
"GPL" / code of sharing that they self-enforce.

From
[http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284](http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284)
:

    
    
      Interestingly, the shanzhai employ a concept called the
      “open BOM” — they share their bill of materials and other
      design materials with each other, and they share any
      improvements made; these rules are policed by community
      word-of-mouth, to the extent that if someone is found 
      cheating they are ostracized by the shanzhai ecosystem.

------
neltnerb
As someone who is doing an awful lot of work in the supply chain, I completely
agree. Open and free to copy reference designs are the only reason I can get
anything done without having impractically broad _and_ deep knowledge.

Simple example -- I make LED lighting for fun and profit. I adopted the
arduino platform years ago because while I could spend the time to make sure
I'm laying out all the components properly (I've done boards for lots of other
microcontrollers), I hadn't done USB programming before. So instead of needing
to find a partner who could write me an entire bootloader system for doing USB
in circuit programming, I can just copy the arduino design, add my secret
sauce, and redistribute it.

Or, more recently I've been migrating to ARM. I know zilch about ARM
processors, but with the mbed platform I could easily make my light into a USB
MIDI device, a DMX platform, and so on. If I had to learn myself how to do all
that, it would be impossibly time consuming and I'd never get anywhere.

~~~
anigbrowl
_mbed_

Oh my goodness, this is fantastic. I had been exploring another platform for
this but there wasn't nearly as many examples/tutorials etc., plus it was
closed source.

~~~
spin
mbed + ethernet is wonderful. If you need some firmware for such a thing, may
I suggest my own github:

    
    
      https://github.com/mfassler/eFirmata
    

The code is still a bit messy, but I'm still actively working on it. (I've got
a bunch of changes that I haven't checked in yet.)

~~~
anigbrowl
Thanks! I'm extremely interested in the possibilites for embedded MIDI
processing, as my music-making is hardware-based and I prefer to minimize the
computer use.

~~~
neltnerb
Sounds like a great project! I hope you share it when you get done =) I'm a
big fan of electronic music, although I don't care for MIDI due to some
quirks.

Are you thinking of the traditional route of making new instruments to do off-
board audio generation to your mixing board?

One of my favorite projects so far was to make our LED lights MIDI devices so
you could sequence them using something like Ableton directly.

[http://blog.saikoled.com/post/49255468343/myki-show-tell-
epi...](http://blog.saikoled.com/post/49255468343/myki-show-tell-
episode-3-usb-midi)

The second application is my favorite.

~~~
anigbrowl
No, doing instruments is hard and at most I would build from a kit there. I
already have a bunch of good quality instruments and get the sounds I like
from programming those. What I'm interested in is hardware sequencing and in
particular combinatorial methods for sequence generation, eg where you combine
a rhythmic sequence of one length with a note sequence of another to generate
changing patterns. At present I do this sort of thing with a Nord Modular but
it gets unmanageable for more complex structures. Also, I don't love the sound
as much as I used to but I can't give up the control over MIDI in hardware XD

I approve of the audio clips on your website BTW, we share some similar
musical tastes. I'll keep an eye on the project.

~~~
neltnerb
Thanks! I can't say I fully understand what you mean; I was mostly taught to
do electronic music using Max/MSP, so most of the stuff I make is all about
generating sounds without much direct conception of things like notes or
patterns. It's a little unusual of an approach, myself I do things like build
simulations of throat singing based on research papers.

Here's a video I did with my throat singing simulator accompanying an LED art
piece I did a long time ago.

[http://web.mit.edu/neltnerb/www/artwork/ultraluminous-2008-0...](http://web.mit.edu/neltnerb/www/artwork/ultraluminous-2008-03-08.avi)

I guess I don't understand how a rythmic sequence would get so complicated as
to overwhelm a computer =) Is this like Conlon Nancarrow stuff? His work is
incredibly bizarre.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlon_Nancarrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlon_Nancarrow)

------
krapht
Nobody who has ever made a commercial product for a living would be trumpeting
a new industrial revolution brought on by open reference designs. Fact is:
that stuff is there already. Component manufacturers literally have field
application engineers who are just waiting to send you reference designs that
use their products, if you're working at the PCB & discrete parts level.

Hardware designs are already open in a way that can't be matched by software -
you can look at a product, take it apart, and :voila: - you have the design in
a way that is far easier to grok than disassembling a closed binary. Many high
end products have full schematic drawings included with the technician's
repair manual. Anything novel enough to be patented has mechanical drawings
and a full description listed in the patent.

The only things you can't take apart are ASICs and other computer chips. But
BFD!? Any player in that space has to have hundreds of thousands just to
prototype one, let alone rent time in an IC fab to make them. If you have that
kind of money, there's plenty of fab-specific IP floating around for your use
at nominal prices.

Open source software is revolutionary because the incremental cost of
duplicating bits is nearly zero. The same can't be said for hardware. In fact
- it's worse. The smaller a player you are, the more expensive it is to
duplicate a design. And it is a pain in the rear to duplicate designs if
they're at all pushing the envelope, since manufacturing tolerances and
capabilities differ so much from outfit to outfit. Can you imagine the pain
and suffering you'd go through porting software that relies heavily on
compiler-specific directives? Well, it's like that when you move from one
factory to another.

Some Chinese outfits have met with success with open / copycat hardware. I'd
argue that's less a result of open reference designs and 3d printing and more
of drastically reduced labor and part costs, all situated in a global hub of
electronics manufacturing.

~~~
drone
Have you considered the value in OSHW is not necessarily in enabling well-
trained engineers so much as making "effective engineers" out of hobbyists?
Sure, one trained in electronics can look at a PCB and surmise its function -
but for one not trained, they would do to understand what each section of that
design does, and why it does it. "Why would part X be used in this design?
What is its function?"

OSHW to me, is more enabling the long tail of invention. To be fair, I think a
lot of the users of OSHW development platforms are looking for the right
combinations of components to make their software designs effective. I see a
lot of stuff out there that is little more than re-packaging of a dev kit in a
cheaper to produce form, but with software that enables it to fulfill a new
purpose.

So, yes, a lot of us do see OSHW as a meaningful activity with a meaningful
outcome. I'm sorry that you think it's pointless for people to share their
electronics designs (Sheesh, can't everyone who wants to make something buy
something else that does exactly that and copy it by looking at a board?)
Truth be told, we could say the same thing about software: I can observe what
it does given any specific input, therefore I could replicate it - who needs
source code?!

~~~
krapht
Don't get me wrong, OSHW does have some value exactly as you said: it's a
great learning tool for hobbyists and those new to field without the money to
reverse engineer a product. But that is not the buzz that is being written by
journalists and Silicon Valley cheerleaders who foresee a future of boutique
micro-manufacturing and bespoke designs for everyone.

A game I like to play when this type of article comes up is to replace every
instance of the word hardware with furniture. So when someone talks about open
source hardware, pretend they are talking about open source furniture. The
hyperbole used in this type of article will become quickly apparent.

~~~
Kliment
Though open source furniture is not at all a bad idea. I built a very
location-specific wardrobe recently[1] that has a pretty unusual design, and
would have loved to have a library of similar stuff somewhere that I could
grab ideas and subassemblies from. In this case, all components except the
custom-printed ones are straight from the hardware store, anyone who feels
like it can build it, and it costs less and performs better (given the unusual
location) than anything you can buy. It's exactly what I would want OSHW to
be. I'll be happy to scan in and share my design sketch for it and the BOM if
anyone is interested. It's technically GPL licensed because the rollers are
derived from a GPL-licensed 3d printer extruder design, but I can't very
easily distribute the resulting product.

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF](http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF)

------
olefoo
The real moneymaking tools in this space are going to be a class of utilities
that can broadly be described as "assisted design"; everything from object
editors that know about pleasing proportions to linters that will tell you
that you laid out the plumbing wrong and you should fix it before it gets
printed.

The printers themselves will be commodified quickly; although multi-material
printers will buck that trend for some time. Feedstock is already commodified
and I can't really see anyone making a play on a printer/feedstock combo that
required you buy only genuine branded feedstock.

The basic design tools ( Meshlab, Blender; etc.) are already free, but require
real expertise to understand and use.

So the main market opportunities are going to be:

1\. finding talented designers/architects/developers and matching them with
the demand for design services.

2\. parametric design adapters that can take a common set of parameters and
produce an individualized design ( from clothing to buildings )

3\. Assistive design tools; tools that help you realize your designs while
ensuring that they remain within the bounds of manufacturability and are
pleasing to the eye and hand; without requiring that you become an expert in
whatever field you are dabbling in. ( Think of a jewelry design application
that knows about both physics and proportion, and suggests alterations to you.
Or a habitat builder that can show you a map of where mildew will happen in
your design...) The basic premise of this class of application is that you
could hand it to a bright fourteen year old and she could design a successful
and functional instance of the target class of object.

If you're hungry for good ideas; there's a fairly rich vein of common items
that people will want a customized version of, but won't necessarily be
wanting a bespoke or personal design. That would be point 2. above.

------
ballard
OSH is inevitable economics; IBM saw the trend, and Dell is in play right now.

Also, it would be interesting to see OSH go as far as processor on up, in the
vein of OpenSparc but actual layout not just vhdl/verilog for FPGAs. Requires
EDA and layout skills obviously, but it's not impossible.

------
6d0debc071
If OSH really becomes a significant paradigm then we can finally start
enjoying reasonably designed CPUs, with a better base abstraction layer.

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but with the war on general purpose computing
well under way that's something that I'd be very interested in.

------
stilldavid
Nathan Seidle, founder of SparkFun (and my boss!) recently talked at a hearing
of the House Committee on IP with regards specifically to open source
hardware. The EFF quoted him in this article:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/tech-sector-does-
its-p...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/tech-sector-does-its-part-
promote-reality-based-copyright-policy-will-congress)

And it echoes how he feels and how we as a company operate. 145 people strong,
$30MM in revenue annually, and not a single patent. All of the products we
make are open source. It's awesome.

------
sown
I recently mentioned in passing that a hardware renaissance is near or
underway. This sort of news gives me hope that it happens.

