Journal:What is the "source" of open-source hardware?

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Full article title What is the "source" of open-source hardware?
Journal Journal of Open Hardware
Author(s) Bonvoisin, Jérémy; Mies, Robert; Boujut, Jean-François; Stark, Rainer
Author affiliation(s) Technische Universität Berlin, Grenoble Alpes University
Primary contact Email: jeremy dot bonvoisin at tu-berlin dot de
Year published 2017
Volume and issue 1(1)
Page(s) 5
DOI 10.5334/joh.7
ISSN 2514-1708
Distribution license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Website https://openhardware.metajnl.com/articles/10.5334/joh.7/
Download https://openhardware.metajnl.com/articles/10.5334/joh.7/galley/12/download/ (PDF)
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Abstract

What “open source” means once applied to tangible products has been so far mostly addressed through the light of licensing. While this approach is suitable for software, it appears to be over-simplistic for complex hardware products. Whether such a product can be labelled as open-source is not only a question of licence but a question of documentation, i.e. what is the information that sufficiently describes it? Or in other words, what is the “source” of open-source hardware? To date there is no simple answer to this question, leaving large room for interpretation in the usage of the term. Based on analysis of public documentation of 132 products, this paper provides an overview of how practitioners tend to interpret the concept of open-source hardware. It specifically focuses on the recent evolution of the open-source movement outside the domain of electronics and DIY to that of non-electronic and complex open-source hardware products. The empirical results strongly indicate the existence of two main usages of open-source principles in the context of tangible products: publication of product-related documentation as a means to support community-based product development and to disseminate privately developed innovations. It also underlines the high variety of interpretations and even misuses of the concept of open-source hardware. This reveals in turn that this concept may not even be clear to practitioners and calls for more narrowed down definitions of what has to be shared for a product to be called open source. This article contributes towards this effort through the definition of an open-source hardware lifecycle, summarizing the observed approaches to open-source hardware.

Keywords: open-source hardware, open design, open innovation, open-source innovation, open-source product development

Introduction

We are currently witnessing an increasing number of initiatives transferring product development and production from the private sector to the public. Enabled by the growing accessibility of affordable manufacturing technology, this is manifested in the expansion of the so-called “maker culture,” which takes action to install participational production as an alternative to industrial production.[1][2] The emergence of this culture is interwoven with the phenomenon of open-source hardware (OSH), which transfers open-source principles (as defined by Open Source Initiative 2007) from their origins in software development to the world of physical objects.[3] While these new practices are raising significant attention, they are still in their infancy and struggle to reveal their full economic, social, and environmental potential. One of the challenges they face is that sharing knowledge about atoms is not as frictionless as sharing bits.

Both practitioners and the scientific community generally acknowledge that online sharing of a piece of hardware is more difficult than the sharing of a piece of software (e.g., see discussion of this point by Raasch[4]. Software is digital by nature; it is made of series of characters in a format that can be shared and displayed online without specific tools, with a text editor being enough. Hardware may need to be described through more complex constructs like 2D or 3D schematics, which may require more specific software to be edited and displayed. Based on the evaluation of a pool of 20 OSH projects whose products embedded both software and hardware components, Balka, Raasch, and Herstatt[5] highlighted that hardware components were generally less documented than the software components. This result raises questions in terms of practice. When a piece of hardware is poorly documented, is it still open source? What does “less documented” mean? What are the minimal requirements for labeling a hardware product as "open source"?

In the absence of clear guidance on this issue, it is not easy to draw a line between which piece of hardware is open source and which is not, even when licensing terms may be clear. Unlike in software, attributing appropriate licences[a] is not sufficient to call hardware open source. Given OSH is a sociotechnical phenomenon, the answer primarily depends on how the product documentation enables co-development and replication. This article seeks to provide guidance on which information sufficiently describes OSH. In other words, what is the source of OSH?

The objective of this article is to provide an overview of how current projects tend to interpret and make use of the concept of OSH. Its ultimate goal is to provide a deeper description of what OSH means based on the observation of actual practices. This is performed through the analysis of the “source”, i.e., the published documentation of 132 OSH products with the help of categorical criteria addressing the question “how open are OSH products?” It specifically focuses on the recent evolution of the open-source movement outside the domain of electronics and DIY to those of non-electronic and complex OSH products.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the next section the general context of emergence of OSH as an alternative product development pattern based on free distribution of information is depicted and characterized. Then definitions from practice communities and scholars are analysed and combined in order to provide a consolidated overview of the concept of OSH. After the definitions, the methodological approach for the acquisition of empirical data allowing the analysis of current practices of OSH documentation is introduced. The results produced by the application of this method are then described and interpreted. Finally, we summarize the findings into an original framework termed "OSH lifecycle," additionally summarizing observed approaches to OSH.

The context of open-source hardware

OSH is a relatively young phenomenon with projects emerging in the past decade[7], although it has several prominent examples already. Pioneering projects such as RepRap, Open Source Ecology, and Local Motors have certainly set a precedence to lift the air of mystery and aloofness of engineering ingenuity closely guarded for means of commercial appropriation. As to whether these are heralds of what Moritz et al.[8] depict as disruptive changes on the upstream end of value chains toward value-co-creation, only time will tell. Clearly, this alternative course of action could take an active part in shaping the technological future. Indeed, there are already promising examples of successful businesses based on OSH for which the scientific community identified corresponding value creation models.[9][10] These examples, together with the empirical evidence provided by free and open-source software, allow for a foreseeing of a flourishing future for OSH.[9][10]

Like free and open-source software, OSH is an IT-enabled internet phenomenon. Fjeldsted et al.[11], as well as Bonvoisin and Boujut[12], point out the integral part IT platforms play in fostering product-related data sharing and community-based product development, as well as the emergence of OSH-based business models. However, Raasch[4] draws a contrast: compared with OSS development, the aspect of physical object design in OSH has strong impacts on required skills, tools, and infrastructure. This aspect is even increasingly salient as the focus of OSH progressively expands towards many other forms of hardware than electronic hardware, like mechanical, construction, medical, optical, agricultural, or textile hardware. From a design point-of-view, the degree of freedom in the problem-solution space introduced by their mechanical portion rises significantly. Howard et al.[13] and Raasch, Herstatt, and Balka[14] also illustrate how OSH is looking at the full spectrum of product complexity and different manufacturing strategies, from do-it-yourself (DIY) to industrial production.

The capacity of communities outside the closed and hierarchical environment of research and development (R&D) departments to develop complex and high-quality products remains a challenge; the largest majority of OSH products available to date are gadgets for hobbyists.[15] As processes transform inputs into outputs, their structure is generally related to the product and project scope. OSH can be described as individual or participatory realization of a shared product design. Therefore, 3D printing designs shared by individuals on sites such as Thingiverse[b] may classify as OSH, similar to large community-based efforts such as the E-Nable project.[c] This makes a big difference in regards to the type of effort being structured for the realization of an open-source product. Hence, depending on the product scope and also the originator's intent to foster co-design, levels of interaction maturity differ starkly in OSH. A useful macro-level classification is offered by Camarinha-Matos et al.[16], starting at networks, then moving to coordination, cooperation, and collaboration.

The conceptual space that supports collective spirit and collaborative problem solving is described by Maher, Paulini, and Murty.[17] It is based on the three aspects of shared representation, motivation, and communication. They enable problem solving in collective design projects within a continuum from collected (individual) to collective intelligence. The latter is demarcated by collaborative generation of solutions as well as synthesis of individual solutions. From their study of collective design activities[18] conclude that within the frame of what they call an inclusive nature of participatory design, individuals proactively self-organize and choose their own roles as well as period of involvement. The maturity of this participatory nature may in fact be the primary determinant of collective design projects.

Social dynamics in crowds are context-dependent, however. In the OSH context, from all of the above, communities can be viewed as socially formed groups of heterogeneous actors who co-create OSH products. Depending on the participatory roles of actors, they may engage as followers, replicators, developers, or community managers. In the frame of open innovation, West and Lakhani[19] describe them as actor volunteers lacking of organizational affiliation. Due to partial influence of market-based factors, this role may somewhat reflect the notion of people giving away their time and effort without any monetary compensation. In addition, actors may as well include individuals, firms, and many other types of organizations.[20]

Aksulu and Wade[21] provide insight on how pure open-source systems set a community-based context of personal development, process learning, and effective technology outputs. In contrast, within the purely proprietary context, purpose is realized by the efficient generation of technology outputs within organizations with clear boundaries.

What exactly makes open-source processes effective seems to be rooted in the task environment. According to Lee and Cole[22], the trade-off between exploration and exploitation is made through a two-tier task structure of generated variations within the periphery, and selection and retention at the core. In their case study of the Linux kernel development project, they observe community-based knowledge creation in the form of an evolutionary learning process based on a culture of critical evaluations and peer learning. Moreover, Howison and Crowston[23] describe collaborative development of OSS as an evolutionary process of incremental and independent tasks, by which a layer structure emerges task-by-task. They argue that added layers change the context over time and significantly reduce complexity of tasks. By gradually laying the foundation, previously unattainable tasks eventually may suddenly become easily achievable by individual developers, or simple workarounds may become obvious. This is in line with the concept of Maher et al.[24] concerning the co-evolution of the problem and solution spaces, which describes how these dimensions influence each other during the design process. Collaborative evolutionary design on the activity level is key in explaining how solutions are generated effectively in open-source systems[d] and needs to be further researched.

Definitions of openness from practice and research

This section reviews existing definitions from practice and identifies resulting implications in terms of published product-related documentation. These definitions are then matched with existing contributions from research in order to provide a comprehensive framework defining OSH. Results of empirical studies which challenge these definitions and show a more heterogeneous landscape of OSH are then presented and lead to the identification of two research questions addressed in this article.

Definitions from practice communities

The Open Source Hardware Statement of Principles 1.0 states that “open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design.”[25] It is based on the assumption that publishing a “design” (alternatively termed “documentation”) realizes the four freedoms of the open-source concept, which are reinterpreted in the context of tangible products as the freedom to study, modify, make, and distribute.[e]

This definition is an adaptation of the original Open Source Definition by the Open Source Initiative[27] to the realms of tangible products. Coined in the context of free and open-source software, it specifies requirements on two interwoven objects: the “software,” alternatively called the “product,” and the “source code.” It is implicitly accepted that the object called “source code” allows defining the object called “product” unambiguously in its depth and its entirety. In the case of software, this implicit prerequisite is automatically fulfilled, as a software product is the translation of a text written in programming language into a machine language by a deterministic algorithm. However, this is not the case for tangible products: what information has to be shared in order to allow any interested person to study, modify, make, and distribute a piece of hardware is not a simple question.

A closer look at the definitions of widely recognized OSH licences and current practices of OSH seeks to give some hints and shows that the four freedoms of open source tend to be supported by different document types or properties[28]:

  • The freedom to study (i.e., the right to access sufficient information to understand how the piece of hardware—referred herein as the product—works and to retrace the underlying design rationale as defined by Wang, Johnson, and Bracewell[29]) can be supported by the publication of schematics, 2D, or 3D CAD files.
  • The freedom to modify (i.e., the right to edit the product definition documents and to tweak or develop the product further for any purpose) can be supported by the publication of all documents in their original editable format.
  • The freedom to make (i.e., the right to use the product definition documents in order to make—in other words to produce, to manufacture—the piece of hardware) can be supported by the publication of a bill of materials and assembly instructions.
  • The freedom to distribute (i.e., the right to give or sell the product definition documents as well as the physical products fabricated with the help of these documents) is allowed by the publication of all documents under a licence which grants free redistribution, including for commercial purposes.

Definitions from scholarly research

Scholarly definitions—mostly stemming from innovation management research—deliver categories which are consistent with the Open Source Hardware Statement of Principles 1.0 without, however, giving further details on the nature of the documentation to be published.

Freedoms to study, to edit, and to make are consistent with the three factors of openness defined by Balka, Raasch, and Herstatt.[5] They respectively term these factors "transparency," "accessibility," and "replicability." Transparency refers to the possibility for any interested person to access sufficient information to understand the product in detail without restriction (which equals the freedom to study). Accessibility refers to the possibility for any interested person to edit design information and therefore to further develop the product (which equals the freedom to modify). Replicability refers to the possibility for any interested person to physically produce the product (which equals the freedom to make). These three factors of openness are introduced as preconditions for three complementary behaviors on the part of the community surrounding the product: Transparency enables observation (and eventually feedback), accessibility enables further development (and eventually co-development), and replicability enables prototyping and production (and eventually co-production). What is missing in this contribution is the fourth factor of openness termed henceforth "commercial usability," which addresses the above listed freedom to distribute.

The four freedoms and corresponding factors of openness cover both “distinct and competing meanings” of openness identified by von Hippel[30]: the permeability of the innovation process to the participation of external people and the public sharing of documentation. Transparency, replicability, and commercial usability are about sharing documentation publicly. Accessibility is about enabling the participation of external people in the design process. Aitamurto, Holland, and Hussain[31] term two meanings of openness: process openness (whether the innovation process is open or closed) and product openness (whether the innovation outcome is open or closed). Huizingh[32] defines open-source innovation as a result of both process and product openness. Raasch, Herstatt, and Balka[14] particularly deliver the following definition: “open-source innovation is characterized by free revealing of information on a new design with the intention of collaborative development of a single design or a limited number of related designs for market or nonmarket exploitation.”



Footnotes

  1. ↑ For an overview of OSH licences, see for example Katz.[6]
  2. ↑ Thingiverse is a platform that allows users to share a huge variety of 3D models based on CAD or STL files.
  3. ↑ Enable Outreach is a network of makers that collaborate locally with disabled children to provide them with adapted 3D printed hand prosthesis.
  4. ↑ Evolutionary design may not generally contradict parallelization or staging of processes, i.e., in the intra-project environment for scaling and efficiency. Also, this is different from the predetermined mechanism of breaking down problems into constituent parts (modularization) and avoids creation of task interdependencies.
  5. ↑ These four freedoms are derived from the free software definition[26], which are: Freedom 0, the freedom to run the program for any purpose; Freedom 1, the freedom to study how the program works; Freedom 2, the freedom to redistribute copies; Freedom 3, the freedom to distribute copies of modified versions. In the transition from the context of immaterial intellectual property to the realm of tangible products, these freedoms have been reinterpreted. For example, running a program requires compiling the source code (an action alternatively termed as build or make in the software jargon). The freedom to run became the freedom to make the product, that is, to produce it.

References

  1. ↑ Hatch, M. (2013). The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers. McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 9780071821124. 
  2. ↑ Voigt, C.; Montero, C.S.; Menichinelli, M. (2016). "An Empirically Informed Taxonomy for the Maker Movement". In Bagnoli, F., Satsiou, A.; Stavrakakis, I. et al.. Internet Science - INSCI 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 9934. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-45982-0_17. ISBN 9783319459820. 
  3. ↑ Balka, K. (2011). Open Source Product Development - The Meaning an Relevance of Openness. Gabler Verlag. p. 4. doi:10.1007/978-3-8349-6949-1. ISBN 9783834969491. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Raasch, C. (2011). "Product Development in Open Design Communities: A Process Perspective". International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management 8 (4): 557–75. doi:10.1142/S021987701100260X. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Balka, K.; Raasch, C.; Herstatt, C. (2014). "The Effect of Selective Openness on Value Creation in User Innovation Communities". The Journal of Product Innovation Management 31 (2): 392–407. doi:10.1111/jpim.12102. 
  6. ↑ Katz, A. (2012). "Towards a Functional Licence for Open Hardware". The Journal of Open Law, Technology & Society 4 (1): 41–62. doi:10.5033/ifosslr.v4i1.69. 
  7. ↑ Balka, K. (2016). "Project List". Open Innovation Projects. Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160927222446/http://open-innovation-projects.org/project-list. 
  8. ↑ Moritz, M.; Redlich, T.; Krenz, P. et al. (2015). "Open up or Close down - The new Era of “Openneers” and how they lead the Way to Future Success". Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics 13 (6): 15–22. http://www.iiisci.org/journal/sci/FullText.asp?var=&id=HB188KY15. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Pearce, J.M. (2017). "Emerging Business Models for Open Source Hardware". Journal of Open Hardware 1 (1): 2. doi:10.5334/joh.4. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Li, Z.; Seering, W.; Ramos, J.D. et al. (2017). "Why Open Source?: Exploring the Motivations of Using an Open Model for Hardware Development". Proceedings of the ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. doi:10.1115/DETC2017-68195. 
  11. ↑ Fjeldsted, A.S.; Adalsteinsdottir, G.; Howard, T.J. et al. (2012). "Open Source Development of Tangible Products - From a business perspective". Proceedings of NordDesign 2012. https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/open-source-development-of-tangible-products-from-a-business-pers. 
  12. ↑ Bonvoisin, J.; Boujut, J.-F. (2015). "Open Design Platforms for Open Source Product Development: Current State and Requirements". Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design 8: 11–20. https://www.designsociety.org/publication/37899/OPEN+DESIGN+PLATFORMS+FOR+OPEN+SOURCE+PRODUCT+DEVELOPMENT%3A+CURRENT+STATE+AND+REQUIREMENTS. 
  13. ↑ Howard, T.J.; Achiche, S.; Özkil, A. et al. (2012). "Open Design and Crowdsourcing: Maturity, Methodology and Business Models". Proceedings of DESIGN 2012: 181–90. https://www.designsociety.org/publication/31985/OPEN+DESIGN+AND+CROWDSOURCING%3A+MATURITY%2C+METHODOLOGY+AND+BUSINESS+MODELS. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Raasch, C.; Herstatt, C.; Balka, K. (2009). "On the open design of tangible goods". R&D Management 39 (4): 382–93. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9310.2009.00567.x. 
  15. ↑ Hansen, A.; Howard, T.J. (2013). "The Current State of Open Source Hardware: The Need for an Open Source Development Platform". ICoRD'13: 977–88. doi:10.1007/978-81-322-1050-4_77. 
  16. ↑ Camarinha,-Matos, L.M.; Afsarmanesh, H.; Galeano, N. et al. (2009). "Collaborative networked organizations – Concepts and practice in manufacturing enterprises". Computers & Industrial Engineering 57 }issue=1: 46–60. doi:10.1016/j.cie.2008.11.024. 
  17. ↑ Maher, M.L.; Paulini, M.; Murty, P. (2010). "Scaling Up: From Individual Design to Collaborative Design to Collective Design". Proceedings from Design Computing and Cognition '10: 581–99. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0510-4_31. 
  18. ↑ Paulini, M.; Murty, P.; Maher, M.L. (2013). "Design processes in collective innovation communities: A study of communication". CoDesign - International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts 9 (2): 90–112. doi:10.1080/15710882.2012.716850. 
  19. ↑ West, J.; Lakhani, K.R. (2008). "Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation". Industry and Innovation: 223–31. doi:10.1080/13662710802033734. 
  20. ↑ von Hippel, E. (2006). Democratizing Innovation. MIT Press. pp. 4, 165. ISBN 9780262720472. 
  21. ↑ Aksulu, A.; Wade, M.R. (2010). "A Comprehensive Review and Synthesis of Open Source Research". Journal of the Association for Information Systems 11 (11): 576–656. doi:10.17705/1jais.00245. 
  22. ↑ Lee, G.K.; Cole, R.E. (2003). "From a Firm-Based to a Community-Based Model of Knowledge Creation: The Case of the Linux Kernel Development". Organization Science 14 (6): 615–758. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.6.633.24866. 
  23. ↑ Howison, J.; Crowston, K. (2014). "Collaboration Through Open Superposition: A Theory of the Open Source Way". MIS Quarterly 38 (1): 29–50. https://misq.org/collaboration-through-open-superposition.html. 
  24. ↑ Maher, M.L.; Poon, J.; Boulanger, S. (1996). "Formalising Design Exploration as Co-Evolution". Advances in Formal Design Methods for CAD: 3–30. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-34925-1_1. 
  25. ↑ Open Source Hardware Association (2016). "Definition (English)". https://www.oshwa.org/definition/. 
  26. ↑ Free Software Foundation (2015). "What is free software?". GNU.org. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html. 
  27. ↑ Open Source Initiative (2007). "The Open Source Definition (Annotated)". https://opensource.org/osd-annotated. 
  28. ↑ Bonvoisin, J.; Schmidt, K.C. (15 February 2017). "Best practices of open source mechanical hardware: A guide with practical advice for sharing product-related documentation". DepositOnce. doi:10.14279/depositonce-5729. https://depositonce.tu-berlin.de/handle/11303/6164. 
  29. ↑ Wang, H.; Johnson, A.L.; Bracewell, R.H. (2012). "The retrieval of structured design rationale for the re-use of design knowledge with an integrated representation". Advanced Engineering Informatics 26 (2): 251–66. doi:10.1016/j.aei.2012.02.003. 
  30. ↑ von Hippel, E. (2010). "Comment on ‘Is open innovation a field of study or a communication barrier to theory development?’". Technovation 30 (11–12): 555. doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2010.09.003. 
  31. ↑ Aitamurto, T.; Holland, D.; Hussain, S. (2015). "The Open Paradigm in Design Research". Design Issues 31 (4): 17–29. doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00348. 
  32. ↑ Huizingh, E.K.R.E. (2011). "Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives". Technovation 31 (1): 2–9. doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2010.10.002. 

Notes

This presentation is faithful to the original, with only a few minor changes to presentation. In some cases important information was missing from the references, and that information was added. The original article lists references alphabetically, but this version—by design—lists them in order of appearance. To more easily differentiate footnotes from references, the original footnotes (which where numbered) were updated to use lowercase letters. Some footnotes referencing web pages were turned into proper citations. In the original, the citation for the Free Software Foundation 2015 is inadvertently missing; the presumed citation is added in this version.

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