Chinese Motorcycle Industry

Described as an example of Open Source, by the Guardian in its review of the Wikinomics book by Don Tapscott.

URL = http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/05/news.netrich

"Chinese motorcycle industry, which has tripled its output to 15m bikes per year over the past decade. There aren't really any Chinese equivalents of the big Japanese and American firms - Honda or Harley. Instead, there are hundreds of small firms, many of them based in Chongquing, the world's fastest-growing metropolis. Their representatives meet in tea-houses, or collaborate online, each sharing knowledge, and contributing the parts or services they do best. The companies that assemble the finished products don't hire the other companies; assembling the finished product is just another service. A "self-organised system of design and production" has emerged - the kind of system we usually associate with phenomena in cyberspace, like Wikipedia, or software released without copyright, so that others can tweak and improve it, such as the web browser Firefox. The Chinese motorcycle industry, in other words, is "open source"." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/05/news.netrich)