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by 4rtemis 3491 days ago
I think there are a lot of things they did incorrectly with OSE, but I like the premise of maintainable self-built open hardware. There's simply not enough open hardware. I don't think it's practical to build it for the third world, at least not now.

Paying a bunch of engineers, farmers, designers etc, that would otherwise be working on farm equipment to design farm equipment blueprints in and open way is an amazing idea. Do they have to be in the field, in a hut they built themselves talking about grand moonshots like changing the world economy or developing lives for the third world. Absolutely not. I agree with you that this seems like developers thinking they know better how to fix the world than those working in it.

So yeah, OpenHardware is cool and it should exist, but it's not going to replace commercial endeavors anytime soon and it's not practical for anything but a hobby today. There's no reason we can't have the Linux conjugate bulldozer option at some point in the future though.
2 comments
tjic 3491 days ago
+1, if only for the phrase "Linux conjugate bulldozer".

...which I would ABSOLUTELY build, if there were plans.

OBTW, tangential, but if this kind of thing gets you excited, check out this guy (Doug Jackson, aka "SV Seeker"), building a 70 foot long steel boat in his backyard.

https://www.youtube.com/user/submarineboat/playlists

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mlinksva 3491 days ago
A shortcut could be to force commercial endeavors to provide Open Hardware through regulation. Not going to happen overnight either, but talking up in policy discourse seems like a better option than talking up in a hut.
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4rtemis 3491 days ago
It used to be, a company wouldn't buy a machine without the spec booklet, the development manual and the in depth machine build information. Hardware producers were not hardware repair shops, you went elsewhere or contracted in house to fix something. As things got more complicated, proprietary and developed for relatively poorer end-users that's no longer the case. Now trying to fix something yourself or contracting out can get you fined or worse.

Maybe regulation would fix this, but it doesn't seem most consumers care for it anyway. Fixing things yourself today is hindered by regulation more than it's helped.

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