Legal Practices of P2P Hardware Technologies
* Report: LEGAL PRACTICES OF DIDIY HARDWARE TECHNOLOGIES. Horizon 2020 Research Project, 2017.
URL = http://www.didiy.eu/public/deliverables/didiy-d6.3-1.0-pub.pdf (link no longer available)
Contains detailed case studies
Executive summary
"We select a series of cases that we consider as good or inspiring practices that can be useful or inspiring for other projects to learn from. We place the legal aspects in a broader perspective of DiDIY communities seeking for a sustainable organising model, or an “open business model”. Our framework has seven main pillars, including licensing, revenue models, production models, governance, community co-creation, external regulatory framework and impact. We look at some cases that provide a platform for the sharing of knowledge and designs, projects that produce machines and projects that produce open (source hardware) designs. Last but not least we also present some cases which run a community network and others that make use of them, collaboratively producing and using open data as a data commons. All cases are examples of DiDIY that maximise the potential for replication, reuse and modification. We hope these cases to inspire and illustrate some of the challenges and ways in which communities have found to deal with them seeking ongoing sustainability of their individual and collective projects."
Directory of Case Studies
- Arduino........................................................................................................................................11
- Raspberry Pi.................................................................................................................................14
- CHIP..........................................................................................................................................16
- RepRap........................................................................................................................................18
- BCN 3D Technologies.................................................................................21
- Lulzbot........................................................................................................................23
- Good Enough CNC........................................................................................................................26
- SketchChair..................................................................................................................................29
- Open Desk....................................................................................................................................31
- WikiHouse..................................................................................................................................33
- Guifi.net.....................................................................................................................................34
- Things Network..................................................................................................................37
- Flood Network...........................................................................................................................39
- OpenTrons..........
Excerpts
DIDIY:
Conclusions and recommendations
"From the selected cases we can draw several lessons about how successful communities and businesses work in the context of DiDIY.
Sharing of knowledge
Most cases apply an open or free licensing policy, or at least extensively use free and openly licensed works and could suffer the risk of being replicated. Instead of seeing this possibility as a threat, it can be conceived as a strength: community members often feel more inclined to contribute voluntarily to a project, where its leaders cannot exclusively exploit these voluntary contributions, but all, in principle, have the same rights. When the projects work and tools are properly documented and published under free licenses, then all members basically the same rights. If the way a community is governed doesn’t satisfy a sufficient part of the community, this part may consider to replicate or fork the project and continue under an other name. This is usually not a desirable outcome, as the energy is split between two communities instead of one, but its mere possibility forces project leaders to carefully listen to their users and keep them happy.
Mixing revenue streams
While people could engage in DiDIY for providing almost anything, not all people are willing to do that, for all their needs, all the time. Instead people may engage in some DiDIY activities while satisfying other needs through the market, through non-digital forms of production or otherwise. The cases studied here are examples that enable full DiDIY but also offer ready made products that people can buy.
Open Source Hardware allows people to do things themselves and with others but also to produce a commercial product based on the design. In projects such as Arduino, where there is much attention and interest in buying ready made products, this freedom to manufacture replicas or derivative products allows therefore competition in the offering of an almost identical product.
The case of Arduino shows clearly that people are willing to pay a considerable plus over such replicas, mainly
by offering two additional unique selling points:
1) the official Arduinos come with a quality label from the project’s founders;
2) by buying the official, one contributes to the founders, appreciating their work and helping them to continue.
Observing the various cases we can see that most combine various revenue streams. Community
models often combine voluntary donations with hardware sales and specialised added-value
services.
Collaborative making or peer production lowers costs
DiDIY and peer production are a way to spur innovation through the community at lower costs compared to paying salaries for inhouse development or contracting development n the market. The lowering of costs then reduces the need for revenue streams to make a project sustainable. This core logic is what makes for an open business model, or commons oriented sustainability model. It seems crucial to align the interests of potential contributors and members to maximise the potential of the community.
Professional services on top of a DiDIY peer produced community project
Where DiDIY is in its core a non-commercial activity, we have seen that the selected Open Source Hardware projects are able to combine the peer production and free/open licensing with commercial activities, such as sale of products based on the digitally shared artefacts. Communities are however often seen as unable to provide professional services. This we have seen can be solved by having a dedicated legal entity from the founders or leadership of the community (cf. Arduino) or in a more decentralised vision as a network of different legal entities providing their versions (cf. RepRap). We have also seen how a community can produce a telecom network with the Digital DIY mindset (cf. Guifi.net, The Things Network). In the case of Guifi.net it is even shown how guaranteed service levels can be provided by commercial operators working on top of the community network.
This seems a model The Things Network and other such community services could replicate. DiDIY knows many cases of people setting up electronic measurement systems with sensors and actuators. These can be low-cost and are often not calibrated, therefore reducing the quality of the measurements. In data analysis one could easily draw the conclusion - “Garbage in Garbage out” - that there would be little practical value in such data. But apart from the learning and empowerment that is in the DiDIY activity itself, knowing the variations of measurements can already be of value, such as the Flood Network in the UK shows. Next iterations of sensor designs can help improve the quality.
Commons reuses Commons and standardised, readily available components
Another detail that can be observed is the fact that most of the selected cases built on already existing forms of digital commons, like Free Software or existing hardware design communities. For example, many RepRap printers use Arduino and various Free Software components. Commons are fragile but digital commons also guarantee future availability Despite the social value that can come from such projects, we should recognise their fragility. Any commons requires continuous attention, maintenance, nurturing. A community can stop to exist or move on inside another project.
At the same time Digital DIY communities can provide a more solid value to its users or customers, in that the open nature of these communities and its digital artefacts assure that one is not dependent on one company (which could go out of business). For example one shouldn’t be afraid of Arduino products running out of support in the future, as with a copy of the design, software and documentation one can always contract a specialised person or organisation, independent from the fate of the founders of Arduino.
Regulatory framework
When we introduced the open business model framework in the beginning of this report we mentioned a seventh pillar: the regulatory framework and how cases interact with that. Details of challenges of DiDIY have been worked out in our previous deliverable D6.1, “Dominant legal challenges and solutions practised”. We suspect that the individual cases presented here hardly have direct impact on regulations individually. Maybe RepRap could be the exception, in that this project is often considered as having fuelled the domestic 3D printer revolution. As such it may influence the view of policymakers in the regulating of digital fabrication and DiDIY. When combining the cases studied here with the wider ecosystem of DiDIY projects and communities we could however conclude that the phenomenon as such shows real social value and that different production and governance models are indeed possible. One effect of that maybe that many regulations foreclosing the mainstreaming of DiDIY have been postponed or avoided all together.
Patenting
Finally, some people have taken open inventions and tried to patent them. When a patent application is submitted people have a right and a duty to object to it if they know that the invention is already in the public domain."
More Information
Bibliography
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Benkler, Yochai (2002). Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm. Yale Law Journal. Retrieved at February 16th 2017 from URL: http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/coases-penguinor-linux-and-the-nature-of-the-firm.
Chesbrough, Henry (2003). Open Innovation. Harvard Business School Press. Chesbrough, Henry (2006). Open Business Models. Harvard Business School Press.
Gosh, Rishab (2001). The FLOSS Project. Retrieved at February 16th 2017 from URL: http://flossproject.merit.unu.edu.
Stacey, Paul, Pearson, Sarah (2016). Made With Creative Commons – Open Business Models. Selfpublication at Medium. Ebook retrieved at February 16th 2017 from URL: https://medium.com/made-with-creative-commons/what-is-an-open-business-model-and-how-canyou-generate-revenue-5854d2659b15#.gfiu175sm.
Osterwalder, Alexandre, Pigneur, Yves (2010). Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. John Wiley and Sons