Group items tagged

"Open source hardware has a set of business models that include the following: Design distribution - Companies can pack sets of designs and sell the distribution just like Linux distributions. The OpenTech CD-ROM is an example of this method. Design technical support - Experts can give support for Open designs. Asics.ws is a company that follows this model by releasing IP cores and charging customers for technical support. Design implementation - Companies can implement the designs, sell them and pay royalties to original designers, according to their release license. Releasing - The release of open designs under the control of GPL-compatible licenses can occur whenever a silicon implementation is considered commercially." "

"The Forty Percent Model This model is based on a simple rule: transparency about costs and a choice between paying us to make the product or doing it yourself. The basic process is that we list all the components and other costs of our product (an autonomous blimp in this case) and links to where you can buy them yourself, along with instructions on how to put them together. If you want to do it yourself, or perhaps already have some of the parts and don't need ours, go for it!"

Unglue is an initiative for books that could be tested within the FARM-Lab research, in the business model research part, to "unglue" usefull patents, by negotiating with owners of patents to by their patent entirely, and "unglue it". unglue.it aim in "ungluing" non-free contents by paying to have books under exclusive license to be "freed" Quote of their website : "What if you could give a book to everyone on earth? Get an ebook and read it on any device, in any format, forever? Give an ebook to your library, for them to share? Own DRM-free ebooks, legally? Read free ebooks, and know their creators had been fairly paid? " It works, and uses alternattive business model of crowdfunding to unglue. It couuld be used for hardware patents.

"Furthermore, there are three more business models for Open Hardware already implemented: 1. Free service for building a greater user base: Adafruit created Adafruit Jobs Board as a marketplace for designers, makers, programmers, artists, engineers and companies who want to meet and work together. This is a free service, but in order to use the job boards users must be Adafruit customers. 2. Partnership between Long Tail Open and Fabbing businesses: Ponoko has teamed up with SparkFun Electronics to enable its users to build custom electronics products combining Ponoko's laser cutting technology with a 1500+ strong electronics catalog from open source electronics supplier SparkFun. 3. Funding Open Hardware projects for getting good Open documentation: In August 2010, Bildr offered to fund original user projects in return for good documentation: in this way it would have promoted a bildr user by showcasing his/her work and paying for the parts to construct it. In return, Bildr would have got more information for its wiki, blog and community under the MIT software license.""

"Even without considering radical projects like all the Open Money and Metacurrency initiatives that proposes new forms of currencies, we can think more about further joining existing currencies with microcredit certificates like the Open Source Hardware Reserve Bank ones. There is the need of accurate, portable and shareable tools of reputation ranking, able to interconnect different local contexts and attached to existing currencies. The Open Hardware still needs proper open-content licenses, since with current licenses we can protect the design but not the manufactured product or forks. And Open Hardware projects will have the need of warranties and conformance marks about the proper function of the manufactured product. Why don't we use the microcredit certificates for these tasks as well? We could design microcredit certificates to act as a conformance mark, warranty and license certificates as well: only the community can issue them and use them for its own self-organization." (http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2011/open-design/business-models-for-open-hardware/) "

"The current Open Source Hardware Draft Definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for Open Source Hardware and it says that Open Hardware is "a term for tangible artifacts - machines, devices, or other physical things - whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those things". The main difference with Open Source Software is that Open Source Software is collaborative, while Open Hardware is derivative:"

Modeling a Paradigm Shift: From Producer Innovation to User and Open Collaborative Innovation, Carliss Baldwin and Eric von Hippel, November 2009, Revised August 2010

"Collaborative governance is a process and a form of governance in which participants (parties, agencies, stakeholders) representing different interests are collectively empowered to make a policy decision or make recommendations to a final decision-maker who will not substantially change consensus recommendations from the group.[citation needed] Governance can employ different degrees of public consultation and participation,[1] ranging from non-participation (the community is unaware of any decisions taken), informing (telling the community what is planned and to understand problems, alternatives and solutions), consultation (to obtain public feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions), collaboration (to partner with the public to develop alternatives, identify preferred solutions, and make decisions), to empowerment (placing final decision-making into the hands of the public). Collaborative governance is governance with characteristics of both collaboration and empowerment.[citation needed] Some models of collaborative governance have been criticized as allowing ad hoc deliberation to drown out minority opposition.[2] "

" Wikidemocracy is a model of government based on the open source and "wiki" concepts that have already been brought to the private sector, i.e. Wikipedia. Some people think it is the future of democracy. The idea, at its most basic level, is bringing common citizens to the law, and allowing for a transparent law process and maximum public input using the latest technology. The pinnacle of this theory is allowing community members in any given jurisdiction direct access to its laws. Using wiki style editing, people can actually edit their demands into laws."

"Open hardware companies are experimenting with different business models. Arduino, for example, makes money largely through design consulting. By creating a design community around their products, they stay in touch with the latest developments. They have also registered their name as a trademark."

Here is 10 Free and useful computer-aided design software. Computer-aided design (CAD) is a combination of computer programs and systems that allow engineers and architects to design detailed two- or three-dimensional models of physical objects, such as mechanical parts, buildings, and molecules. It specially used to design curves and figures in two-dimensional ("2D") space; or curves, surfaces, and solids in three-dimensional ("3D") objects. There are so many "free" CAD programs out there but only a handful are either really free or useful. 

"From Kostas: Hi Marcin, I see there is now some active discussion on CAD/CAM so I would like to give you some hints about the status of FreeCAD: 1. after my work on the sketcher mostly been finished, we can draw all parts of a 3D printer: https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1867 2. jriegel (project founder/manager) is actively working on the assembly module, multidocument support: http://free-cad.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=free-cad/free-cad;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/jriegel/dev-assembly after this step FreeCAD will be ready for real applications. 3. Collaborative modelling, a revision system and an online parts library are further objectives of the project. e.g. https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/free-cad/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1378 "

The author of this HowTo biogas digester might be a good resource person : http://www.greenoptimistic.com/about-us/ "To construct a good biogas plant, you should not only respect the dimensions as indicated on the drawing but also follow the correct construction method. Hereunder, in a step-by-step fashion, the right construction method of the 2047 design GGC model biogas plant is given."

"Nepal Biogas Plant -- Construction Manual Construction Manual for GGC 2047 Model Biogas Plant"