How Open Source Hardware Is Kick-Starting Kickstarter

ptorrone writes "Imagine waking up and seeing your design for a circuit being used in a product by someone who never contacted you to ask if it was okay. You will not get any payment for their usage of your design, they've raised over $31,000, and they're selling something you worked really hard on. You have no control over what someone does with something you made. Is this a nightmare? Perhaps for some, but this is actually a dream come true for others who do open-source hardware. MAKE magazine profiles a maker using open-source hardware for his now-funded project and looks at others using open hardware for their works."

Comments

Greed

[cloudmaster]

If I didn't have the resources and someone else did, good for them. This is not hypothetical: I publicly posted an idea a while back to build a device for myself, and a couple of years later, it was a successful consumer electronic product someone else made. Someone else did the production and marketing, and then a big company eventually bought the company out. Yeah, I had the idea and did the initial design, but I wouldn't have marketed it. So I'm glad someone else was able to get what they wanted.

People who want to hoard knowledge are bad for society. If you actually will act upon it, great, you need some protections like patents or whatever. But if it's just something you enjoy doing, be happy with doing what you enjoy. Life's not all about money...

Re:Greed

[digitalsushi]

Life is not all about money, but if you've got hungry kids, it's hard to keep that thought in the foreground of your mind.

Re:Greed

[jellomizer]

And you didn't get a dime from your work. How selfish are you. We support giving away your ideas and your work for free and in the same breath you complain how hard it is to get a job, or how the middle class is getting paid less. However you give away tools for the big corporations to use for free. Meaning they won't need to spend money on hiring people to do a lot of good middle class jobs such as making software for them. Or buying it from a company who has a team of middle class paid developers working for them.

Technology is getting to a point that they can take a lot of good jobs away from people because they are cheaper and better. Now you want to give away for free to these fat cats resources that computers cannot replace.

Re:Greed

[jellomizer]

As someone with experience in this. Outsourcing doesn't save a company a lot of money, and it is usually better to hire local people to do the work.

1. Cultural problems. In the US we have Software Developers in India they have Programmers. The difference is US Software Developers think on their feet better, and put their artistic flare and pride in their work. In India you give them a spec you get your code. It meets the spec but without any fore-site or creativity in the process. So when the requirements do change they have to go back and re-code. Also US Developers are more willing to say they need help, when they see there wheels spinning. India programmers will just keep on going and going. You then ask them a week later why it isn't done they will go well I am stuck on step 1. To solve these problems you need an engaged management who cost more then the developer does, being that they need to do micromanaging they can probably only do 2 or 3 programmers while one manager can Manage 6-8 US Developers.

2. Time zones. The further you outsource the bigger the problem with time zones are. Not allowing the people to attend meetings or have them explain to you what they have been doing means more work disjointed to what needs to be done.

3. Lack on interpersonal communication. You don't know what each person strengths and weaknesses are. Giving them jobs that they cannot perform well.

4. Language problems. A joke or an attempt to be friendly can sometimes cause a problem.

There are a lot more too... Many companies are actually resourcing a lot of their work back, because they found that there is actually value to it.

Re:Greed

[cduffy]

If you're good enough that what you do that your ideas are getting made into products, I'd be surprised if your kids are going hungry.

Not having their college funds paid for? Sure, but that's a different story.

Re:Greed

[StuartHankins]

+100 Insightful. I've known a lot of people who believe they can wave a magic wand and have quick turnarounds and awesome software by simply hiring it out to some overseas company. Yes, sometimes it works, but when it doesn't, the reasons outlined by jellomizer are often the cause. A lot of it depends on how unique your requirements are, and how much effort you can put into managing a group located somewhere else.

Re:Greed

[rgbatduke]

There isn't really any substitute for creative intelligence, is there, or for engagement in the process? Even the dollar costs are often deceiving -- one can at least partially fund local development efforts for lots of things with e.g. stock options, and give the programmer a stake in the outcome while conserving scarce capital. Paying coders in India may save you up-front dollars but won't get you the effort you would get out of a participant.

Then there is the issue of support -- writing the original code is only the first part of any software project.

When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in.

Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming.

When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved.

Truly, this is the Tao of Programming.

It's difficult to conform to the Tao if your coders are in India or Ireland or China. "Making commitments" seems likely to involve direct acceptance of the risks and local investment in the project(s).

rgb

I just did this yesterday...

[ErikZ]

I donated to an open source hardware group called "Global Village Construction Set".

I hate the whole "Global Village" concept. I love the idea of sitting down and designing hardware to be cheap to make, and giving away the designs.

And just like open source, you can improve on the original designs, fix any flaws, etc.

Re:Thjis is why you patent

[Eunuchswear]

If your idea is unique enough to get a patent, patent it. Not everybody who can invent wants to run a company.

Not everyone who can invent is a selfish git.

that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously

KickStarter and the iDevice

[QuasiSteve]

I'm pretty sure KickStarter really kickstarted with indie movies, music, etc. In fact, they are still the main projects on KickStarter (and similar sites, like indiegogo).

What's really 'kickstarting' KickStarter a second time, at least when it comes to tech, is the iDevice.

There's two areas for technology, the Tech section:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/technology/popular

And the Design section, which is vastly more tech than design:
www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/design/popular

1 in 5 of the projects in either section section are iDevice-oriented - this includes, for example, the 'Sacred Grounds' smartphone app, by which they really mean iOS app and "they hope" to make an Android version as well.

For the Design section this of course makes sense.. the iPhone and iPad give a narrow target with lots of users so you're far more likely to gain success with e.g. a stand or enclosure there than you could when designing for any single random Android, BB, WP7 or whatever device.

But also keep in mind it includes such gems as this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcnab-lazar/cablegone-cable-managing-solution?ref=category

Now I'm all for cable management solutions, even if there's dozens available in the world that doesn't mean we can't have one more. But the additional quality of this cable management is that it can double as a stand for an iPad, the project summary (as seen in widgets etc.) notes:

Cable.Gone hides the usual clutter and instantly turns your desk into a stylish working space. It can be also used as an iPad stand.

Yes.. then again, it could be used as any tablet stand. It could be used as a laptop stand. Similarly, a two-by-four could also be used as an iPad stand.

So why point out the iPad? Marketing, of course. And not just to end-users, but to KickStarter as well. I've more than once joked to people who are doing innovative tech that if they want to get listed on KickStarter, they should mention an iDevice in some way to increase their odds.
With 1 in 5 projects being iDevice-exclusive or iDevice-targeting in those two sections, I'm not sure I should be treating it as just a joke anymore.

A bit more on-topic.. 'open hardware' is indeed a large portion of the other 4 in 5 projects in those sections - sometimes from the get-go, sometimes after deliberations and popular demand (such as with the HexBright Flex flashlight). 'open software' however lags behind quite a bit with most projects going nowhere fast. In part that's because those projects tend to be vague, and in part it's because there's often no visible ROI. With an indie movie, you get some exclusive images, a downloadable copy, perhaps even the DVD. With hardware you might get a kit to build it yourself, or a pre-assembled thing, or maybe you just get to see that a website that ends up selling the completed products was indeed launched and you get a sticker (hey, whatever you pledge for - it's not a bazaar after all, it's more like an investment round.. rewards are just for enticement). But with software, especially open source software.. what people, or the market, get is often unclear.
E.g. TweetFree: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1100820943/tweetfree-secure-distributed-social-networking-pla?ref=category

Your generous donation will be used to fund continued development of TweetFree, to purchase support contracts for open source software we use and need support on, and to purchase hardware (computers) to run new relay and network servers from.

So in essence, any funding goes into a black box never to be seen, or accounted for, again, if the blurbs are the only thing to go by. And this for a service that vaguely de