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The Makerspace Is the Next Open Source Frontier
An anonymous reader writes: Jono Bacon explains that in the same way open source spawned millions of careers and thousands of companies, the same openness has massive potential when applied to products. It could potentially jumpstart a revolution in how we conceptualize, build, and share things and how we experiment and innovate to push the boundaries of science and technology. He outlines some steps for adapting open source principles to physical creations: "...we will need to create a premise of a blueprint bundle. In much the same way I can download a branch from Git or a tarball with some code, complete with build system, we will want to be able to download a single branch or tarball with the full software, hardware designs, and more for how to create an open product. ... we will need to figure out how we collaborate and improve different pieces of these projects. For example, if someone refines a 3D printed piece of a drone, how do they fork the blueprints, submit their changes, have them reviewed, and get them merged into the project? Another question could relate to automated testing: when building physical products we can't always afford to build and test new physical hardware for it to then crash and burn, so how can we have unit tests for hardware or test in a virtual setting?"
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It doesn't. There's no replacement for experience and actually working on things for real. A lot of 'makers' don't understand this.
Just as an example, Ikea is manufacturing ten thousand flatpack shelters. This was the result of people with materials experience getting together with people that manage refugee camps and are aware of the conditions, and people that do shipping and other materiel distribution, so that they could manufacture something that's durable, simple to assemble, and capable of being transported easily. Sure, corrugated plastic, extruded metal tubing, and rivets aren't sexy like a 3d printer, but the point was to build and deliver a product, not to navel-gaze in self-congratulatory smugness while the 3d printer warms up...
Sorry, I don't have a lot of respect for "makers". Those that self-identify with that label are as silly as those rooftop gardeners in high-density environments that try to call their 2' by 6' patch of dirt a "farm".
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In other words, 'nerds' will discover what the DIY and crafting communities have been doing for longer than any of us have been alive, but since THEY do not have those hobbies it must be a new revolutionary idea!
Which is kinda the pattern I see a lot in tech, people living in bubbles discovering what others have already been doing, giving it a new name, and claiming they came up with something new that all those non-makers couldn't have.