Barriers to OSPD

Barriers to Open Source Product Development

Currently, open source development is mainstream in the world of software. Open source product development in hardware is currently either unheard of, or insignificant, in that only about 1 millionth of the hardware goods economy is based on open source design.

Potential

The potential outcome of open development is great. It is assumed that open source product development affords the only sustainable way to do software (see Awesome Economics of Open Source), and by extension, the same should apply to hardware. For the hardware case, sustainability must include environmental soundness and social justice - paving the way for regenerative development.

Barriers

• Historical evolution - software started open source in the 1970s, went proprietary, and now is open source again. Hardware has started closed source 200 years ago, and remains proprietary. There is a significant cultural barrier to transitioning from a proprietary mindset, though in principle, this should be possible within one generation. Given that most of global institutions support proprietary development, the only way that we can eradicate the proprietary mindset disease is by - concurrently - changing many of the world's institutions. This would be a full time job for a large number of people, and this is precisely within the purview of Open Source Ecology's work: mass creation of right livelihood towards movement entrepreneurship to address all the world's institutional mis-design.
• Clarity on the Status Quo - rationally, what works and what doesn't? There may be many opinions on what institutions of society work well and which are broken, and cutting through the noise to arrive at a general consensus may be difficult.
• Survival - surviving is a central issue that cause people both in the developing world and the 'advanced' world a lot of trouble. Most people scramble to make a living, and only a small percentage of people have enough liberty in their lives to pursue self-determination. Most people are on the treadmill, keeping up with the Joneses, 80% dislike their work - but people are forced to work otherwise they would not have the resources to keep food on the table and a roof over their head. This applies to both rich and poor people. In practice, that means that very few people have the liberty or attention span to contribute to public economic development, and this role is relegated to governments, which are not particularly efficient. See Efficiency of Government.