Maybe you can answer a question for me - why is that the hackerspaces in the UK are not open to the public all the time? I've been quite surprised at how difficult it is to get involved in the hackerspace scene in the UK - but I guess I'm kind of spoiled with the Metalab/Vienna situation. Is there some law in the UK that makes it difficult for hackerspaces to maintain an open door policy for the public, or is it more that the hackerspace is not as vibrant in the UK as it is on the Continent, and there aren't hackers there all the time?
What city you in? Some cities are more vibrant than others. London Hackerspace is huge (>300 members??), with a pay-what-you-want policy for membership.
London Hackerspace seems to be modelled a bit like noisebridge. Lots of people, maybe too many people to make socializing all that easy because there are so many subsets.
Edinburgh Hacklab open to public twice a week. Edinburgh is a relatively small city (~800k people), so distributing everyone over the week would not be so good. Also our membership is relatively expensive (£25). So our model is about a smaller group of dedicated hackers with stronger social ties. Small means we can keep our expensive equipment running without feeling like a public service.
Newcastle Hackerspace is pretty awesome too. They are bigger than Edinburgh with a pay-what-you-want. They have a mobile CNC they bring to field events!
Maybe we in the UK are not as good as Austrians at organising regular events ("an average of 1 event per night at Metalab"). But equipment wise metalab has a similar standard of tooling as all the above have.
A lot of it comes down to the fact that there is no one such thing called "hackerspace". Everyone has their own opinions on what that constitutes.
My old space while I was still in Philadelphia was more like what you described in the UK, and we would occasionally get people who would complain about it not being more like what you described for Vienna. We had a set membership fee, only one public night a week, and membership had to be approved by unanimous vote of the current membership.
But every space is there to serve the membership. Our membership decided the space was a workshop first and foremost. I think anywhere you are out of the mainland-European anarchist scene, you're going to see hackerspaces gravitate more towards that form. A wide open space like Noisebridge with pay-what-you-want mentality takes a non-traditional mindset.
Luckily, there is room in the world for both types.
Our funding model relies on subscriptions, and public access all the time would severely erode the value. In addition, we need to make sure that everyone using "dangerous" kit is properly trained, which is more practical with a closed door model.
Thanks for explaining it to me - I honestly thought it might have been some UK law or regulation regarding assemblies of people/membership taxes and so on.
The reason I wonder about it though is that the open nature of hackerspaces is one of the huge selling points. To be honest I can gain access to much better equipment than exists in your average hackerspace, elsewhere, but the fact that some random stranger coming in off the street might have something amazing to contribute is a big reason why I prefer to participate in the hackerspace scene. The truly open hackerspaces I've been to here on the continent, too many to list now, have always been very vibrant and alive - but my experience in the UK was, to put it frank, quite a lot more gloomy in that regard.
Anyway, I understand - each hackerspace has its own thing, and I'm glad its not a government-enforced situation, which had me wondering ..
