Chinese Open Source
A non-proprietary consortium without a license (see No License) which does not generally document publically according to OSHWA standards. As such, the Chinese Open Source intellectual property model is wild and undefined. While blueprints are not published, they are shared within the consortium, and decent access is available to outsiders. NDAs and patents are typically not involved.
From the standpoint of OSE Specifications, the decentralization aspect is weak in terms of China remaining the materials supplier and assembler. A more distributive route would be where materials production and assembly/manufacturing is distributed as well.
As such, this is getting closer to a distributive economics when co.pared to pure proprietary development. However, without true open source documentation and distributed production, this model is limited. The Chinese production model, like standard models, suffers from overproduction coupled with poor lifecycle stewardship.
There is a huge opportunity, however. Due to the volatility and undefined boundaries in Chinese Open Source - there is ample room for entrepreneurial innovation closer to OSE Specifications.
Specifically, a compromise may be made by using Chinese supply chains (which is already the case in America), while making the design open source and manufactured in a distributed fashion. If China is a supplier - this fits the interest of China, and it fits the interest of OSE Specifications (OSe Spec) to distribute production far and wide according to principles of authentic Distributive Enterprise. OSE Spec promotes Full Recursion, so the end game is a distributed economy. A balance of productive power globally is attained by a combination of innovative lifetime design, lifecycle stewardship (local microfactory-based Extreme Manufacturing) business models as promoted by OSE.
A meaningful collaboration could be struck if: Phase 1:
- China open sources a product (fully open design blueprints)
- Production engineering is redesigned for lifetime design, lifecycle stewardship, open source digital manufacturing facilities with built-in plastic and metal recycling infrastructures.
- Manufacturng occurs locally in an Extreme Manufacturing scenario
The identifiable risk lies in point 2. R&D towards distributed manufacturing is significant, and is a heavyweight undertaking for Chinese partners. This is because the R&D would have to happen up front if we want to do this right (Lifecycle Stewardship, local production)- otherwise we are just selling Cheap Chinese Shit and not really solving any wealth distribution problems. Thus, convincing funding partners on Point 2 is the challenge. One possible solution here is using a well-funded Incentive Challenge to support the endeavor.
It should be noted that unlike with Western producers - Point 1 is an option up front. Imagine going to GM with a request to open source their car. Can that happen? Possible, but not likely.
Summary
For the case of SZOIL - the opportunity is great for traditional production with low lifecycle stewardship, but attaining OSE Specifications would be much harder. Ways to inject OSE Spec must be included. If China is willing to collaborate openly on open-sourcing of designs, then OSE can commit to converting the production engineering to the Extreme Enterprise model. The model would be truly Distributive by design, under the auspices of a Distributed Quality Control Organization such as OSE.