Reply To: Iconography

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prosario_2000 wrote: That’s why the question above confuses both kinds of technology, as if you can make technology open source. Maybe you can make the specifications free, but never the physical technology itself … unless we realize Star Trek’s dream of inventing the replicator.

The equivalent to open source for physical things (hardware) is if you don’t maintain any proprietary/secret information. You patent everything, so no one else can patent it first, then you allow anyone to use your ideas in their products for free, or at least for a very low licence fee.

You could release a reference design for a piece of hardware, then allow anyone to go manufacture it. Taiwan/China would start mass producing them, and their profit comes from the marginal increase they sell it over their production costs. Some other company can come out with a cheaper cost of production unit and undercut them. Capitalism at its finest! Open source for hardware would just mean the licensing fees are very, very low, or perhaps zero.

-Dave