Blog Post on OSE's Development Method
Exlainer Video Script
Intro screen. Open Source Ecology -- (ting) -- Home of Distributive Enterprise. ---
Open software is well-established, and has its development process figured out -- (pop in) -- Github, Wikipedia
The process for developing open hardware, on the other hand, is much harder.
It requires materials, tools, facilities, logistics...
Nobody has it figured out yet.
Figuring this our is important because then people could design new things really fast.
After all, just about any new 'invention' is just a small step on top of all existing human knowledge.
But because just about everything today is proprietary - everyone reinvents the wheel.
Now imagine compressing development times of hardware- say from 5 years - to 2 weeks - by radically efficient global collaboration. Like Wikipedia.
5 years is 10,000 hours with one person. Or 2 weeks with 100 people.
Say you are doing an open source startup. With unleashed collaboration, you can ship faster. And retire earlier. Hopefully to doing world-changing work.
Open source hardware means distributing production. The market for honest work - about $100 Trillion - is the entire global economy. Bumping out invading colonials is good work (walmart -> Polydome with Gandhi).
Be a part of the change.
Open Source Ecology is starting a group on the Open Source Hardware Development Method. We will:
1. Invite leading OSH practitioners (OSHWA logo + Peeps) 2. Identify all the steps in open hardware development 3. Identify all the Assets that proper documentation should have 4. Create standards, best practices, icons, and taxonomies 5. Then agree on a formal set of standards with the community, adopt, and implement them
Now the list of steps and assets will be long.
Especially if it includes open hardware across all sectors - from electronics - to planes trains and automobiles - and permaculture systems and industrial ecologies.
But the good news is - once everything is put on the table - then different projects can pick and choose what they need.
Say you need a basic documentation strategy. Here are the main steps, best practices, best tools ....
Say you need all your legal framework, or to build your community. You get the picture.
If the Overall Protocol is Defined and Standardized - then it can serve as a backbone that can be mashed up, adapted, and further developed, stylized, and published. For projects to really build upon each other, the first step is for their documentation to be structured sufficiently so it can be found readily.
We have started work on this in 2013 by instigating the open source hardware documentation jam. We are continuing.
So sign up for our working group, and make history happen. --- Open Source Ecology. Home of Distributive Enterprise.
http://opensourceecology.org/open-source-hardware-development-method