P.S. I would gladly pay for OSH as well, as long as it's guaranteed to last for a long time.Regardless of whether I am believed, I have to say I don't care about getting something for nothing. But I believe that the existence of free-as-in-beer hardware would be very beneficial in some cases where one cannot afford to pay for the hardware, especially in situations regarding health, the environmental conditions, life-and-death circumstances, developing countries etc-that's why I insist in this notion.
On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:44 PM, Timothy Normand Miller <[email protected]>wrote: > On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Ilias K. <[email protected]> wrote: > > First of all, thanks much for your replies. Well, you didn't > misunderstand > > what I was asking. But your answers were not so obvious to me. I'd like > to > > share some thoughts of my own. > > > > For the sake of brevity, in the following, when I refer to software I > mean > > open source, when I say "free" I mean the legendary "as in beer". > > > > My reasons for asking are not just academic, I rather envision a new > > hardware project that would be not for profit-but I wouldn't want to > burden > > you with the details, at least for now. However, the modular approach > that > > Daniel referred to gives some thoughts on how your project and the one I > > have in mind could benefit from each other, but I'd like to elaborate on > > this later, if it's not a problem. > > If you're not-for-profit, then your revenue equals your costs. But > you still have costs, and therefore you still need revenue. And for > hardware duplication, the costs are very high. > > > > > The main problem with my plan lies with the cost of materials needed to > get > > this through. And, of course, the development costs. If this was strictly > a > > software effort, the first problem would not exist.And the second would > just > > boil down to gathering volunteers for yet another software project. > > > > So I was wondering what it is that makes software projects different than > > hardware projects cost-wise, and whether the differences could be > accounted > > for. > > If you think about it, software projects aren't actually free. Someone's > got > > to pay for the computing equipment and the Internet connections that are > > needed in order to make software a reality. > > Yes, but typically enthusiasts have those already, which they bought > for other purposes and can continue to use for other purposes. You > would only count the cost of your development machine if you bought it > expressly and exclusively for the purpose of writing free software. > But still, you only have to do it once in order to work on any number > of free software projects. Even the bandwidth to upload is > essentially free since most of us never hit our bandwidth caps. Once > that's all over with, you can post your code on Sourceforge, and > you're done. No more costs to you for an unlimited number of copies. > > With hardware, there is a recurring high cost for every instance of the > device. > > So, while you have a point that there are some (nonrecurring) costs > for hobbyist software development, the cost of software distribution > is essentially zero compared to the cost of hardware distribution. > > > But you have software volunteers > > regardless, and in many cases no price is put on the actual software > > product. On the contrary, I don't think that anyone would give away the > > actual hardware that they've built, and it would even sound absurd to ask > > someone to do so. And I'm not saying that this is not logical or that > it's > > bad in any way, but I keep wondering. > > You say it's absurd, but so far it seems like a logical consequence of > what you're suggesting. > > > > > If these assumptions are not wrong, and based on what I've read so far, I > > think that this is an issue of the difference of the perceived costs > between > > hardware and software. > > Perceived? Where could our perceptions be wrong? Hardware costs > money to copy. Software does not. I think those perceptions may be > very well grounded. > > > In the case of software, non-material incentives > > (experience gain, collaboration, sense of freedom, pure creative joy) > would > > outweigh the development cost for a volunteer. So, the first free > software > > communities were based on these incentives.But for a hardware developer, > > maybe the material costs clearly outweigh such non-material incentives. > I'm > > not a hardware developer myself (at least not yet), that's another reason > > why your opinions could be of great help to me. > > So what you're saying is that both software and hardware have some > marginal duplication costs, and you're wondering if the hardware > duplication costs are small enough, then people wouldn't mind making > copies of hardware and giving those copies away for free? > > This makes me wonder: > - Do we have the same definition of 'hardware'? > - Do we have the same concept of what it means to > duplicate/manufacture hardware? > - Why would anyone want to spend time manufacturing hardware just to > give it away? > - You still haven't answered where we would get the money for raw > materials. (Software has no raw materials to speak of.) > > Also, I think you need to address Lars' points. Your suggestion > doesn't make sense in practical OR abstract terms. It doesn't make an > appropriate comparison between software and hardware, and it seems to > want to get money out of nowhere. > > I really mean no disrespect. I would really like to understand where > you're going with this and see if you have a useful point to make. > But you haven't made it yet. So I have to ask: Are you trolling? > > -- > Timothy Normand Miller > http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti > Open Graphics Project >
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