Much drama over the last few days… MakerBot (MBI), a company that makes home 3D printers and a company that has been VERY vocal over the years about supporting open source, has apparently decided that their new hardware will be closed source.
Some links worth reading, if you’re into such drama:
SparkFun blog from their founder, which doesn’t mention MBI but its timing and mention of the “150” make pretty much everybody think it’s a direct response to MBI: http://www.sparkfun.com/news/963
There are about a bazillion other blogs, G+ posts, tweets and all that too, if you’re still reading.
I don’t know where GHI really stands on OSHW but if they wanted to talk about it, lots of people are listening right now. Double-especially with the OSHW Summit and MakerFaire:NYC happening this week.
@ ddurant - I’ve been following this. I still see no statement that officially answers the question of whether they will be open or closed source going forward. Their constant dancing around the question seems to indicate the negative but have you found somewhere that does confirm this? It would be a sad day and would certainly help narrow down my choices when I finally break down and get a 3D printer.
I took the “we’re figuring this out” as a sign that it should be no surprise if they don’t go open. My take here is that it’s real difficult for people to innovate and drive advancement of their technology in a fully open manner, while still protecting their investment.
i like the Dave jones comment from The Amp Hour the other day. There’s nothing that says you can’t manufacture an open source product but only publish the source once you have established your “return on investment” point. That might be a way to protect your investment up front and still allow the community incremental development.
Unlike someone like Sparkfun who have a relatively small investment in each “device” that makes little sense to be overly stringent in protecting, I can imagine the MakerBot Replicator has a lot of R&D time invested in it.
Companies do spend a lot of time and money developing products. Let’s say you spend $200,000 to develop a product that will retail for $500. You might say, “well then you need to sell $200,000/500 = 400units to pay back the investment.” But if you said that you would be wrong. If you are very lucky 20% of the sales price might be profit, in this case it costs your $400 to make the product you sell for $500. So with a $100 profit/unit you need to sell 2,000 units just to pay back the research investment then? Nope, because you still have to have money left over to pay your employees and do frivolous things like eating at least once a day.
So you have spent all this money to design the product and you make it ‘Open Source’ and what happens? Ten copycats come along, who have $0 invested in it, and copy it and sell it for $450, undercutting you and making it really, really difficult to stay in business.
Open source has its place but it is not the answer for everything.
@ Jeff_Birt - I understand where you’re coming from but this is a totally different situation. You are describing the typical company that comes up with an idea, does all the R&D internally and finally brings a product to market that is new and innovative. In this situation it’s understandable to be somewhat protectionist. MakerBot wasn’t built this way. The community did all the R&D over several years in a very open way which one could say fostered the entire hobby 3D market. So, for MBI to then take that work and close it off should definitely be considered a slap in the face to all those that helped get MBI where they are today. If they got to where they are on this model why should they think they can’t continue to grow using the same model? It stinks of greed forced in by their VCs and will almost certainly result in the loss of their community if they do close it off. Sure, people will copy but people will also buy MakerBot because they are the innovators. FEZ Hacker could certainly be acquired cheaper than a FEZ Panda-II but which one do people buy the most of?
Nope, no confirmation aside from a report of somebody calling MBI support on the day this started and being told “no, not open source.” That’s sorta what started this whole thing.
Depending on whether you want to sell the ‘widget’ for $500 and be done with it, or use it as a loss leader to generate more business. Consulting, support, and customization spring to mind.
This is sort of my stance on open source provided the company fronted most/all of the R&D costs. Perhaps someday we’ll see more flexible licensing like this, right now we seem to have two extremes: Stallman’s people demanding everything totally free all the time, and corporate lawyers willing to spend millions to jealously guard the preciousss years after it’s lost all commercial value.
As far as MakerBot goes, I haven’t really followed it but from going through those links it sounds like whoever gave them the $10 million has taken control of the company and silenced internal dissent.
I’m cynical, but I have only this to add: Just because MBI goes closed source, it doesn’t stop anyone from producing the old open MB design, and it doesn’t stop further development of the platform by open hardware enthusiasts, right?
oshw is always a interesting topic, just because a item is open source doesnt really mean people will not buy the original nor will people opt to copy the original, like wise just because something is closed sourse doesnt people wont copy it either.
look at sparkfun for example most if not all their boards have schematics and eagle files to accompany them, however they sell millions of dollars in turn over year after year. same can be said for ghi open source offerings yes we could copy the open source files and build ourselves a hydra say for example but why bother ? I think the same can be said for the 3d printers yes a few people could build their own but the majority of people would just buy one if they wanted it.
As for closing sourcing the makerbot well its kinda pointless as the majority of infomation is in the public domain same as say cnc routers yes people do build them for the challenge and some do sell them on but i bet the majority of people buy one from a reputable company. In the long term unless you have patents and are prepared to use them there is no point in not being open sourced hardware imo.
Now software i think is different, i can see obviously why some like say ghi`s premium libraies are closed no problem there any company thats sent time developing unique and added value resourses sure keep them closed. the great thing actually open ghi is that they suppliment their premium libraies with open software that if anyone could be bothered they could reproduce, but again why bother ?
yes open or closed software or hardware is a tricky subject but i think striking a balance is crutial these days and i think ghi have got it spot on. as for makerbot i think clos soursing a project that was developed in opensourse would be a great mistake. just my two pennys worth
Well, when someone is selling $8 in parts for $40, that’s a good reason to bother, if the added value is of no worth to you (i.e. sourcing the parts and assembling the widget is no bother).
well the time it would take me to open their eagle file, order a board then check the made board and solder it up. nope i doubt many people would bother. even thou i am aware of the component costs. however from a educational point of being able to view how these things are designed and work then thats the real benefit of oshw.
the thing that bothers me the most and i know im running off topic abit but its mobile phones and companies sueing each other over rectangles with rounded corners.
i hate patents and if it where up to me they would all be time limited to a cetain number of years then automatically released to the public to do as they pleased with them. if this where the case we would have alterantive green power today as the fuel companies couldn`t sit on all the damn alternative power patents. !!!!!!
As I said, SF have a different model. They might have $1000’s in “R&D” costs for a breakout board (sample chips, test boards for a design, polished final designs in Eagle etc). They churn out one a week or one a day or one an hour, I don’t know, but they don’t have 5 designers working on one design or one “product” for months on end. Lots of little investment points not one huge one. When you have one huge project, you have much more invested that you want/need to manage/leverage to be profitable as a business.
Well, right, except you’ve got it backwards. The amount of R&D that goes into a simple breakout board approaches zero. You pull the app note that gives you the reference design, put it on a simple board, and send it to manufacturing.
Sparkfun’s model works because, well, I don’t really know why, but I suspect that it has a lot to do with their target market, who could be more the “Arduino” crowd, and less the “AVR Freaks” crowd. That, and they stock some stuff that is just difficult to get.
No I think my $1000’s was mis-interpreted - as well as being generous (I originally said $100’s to $1000’s which may have been clearer; I mean LOW thousands). A dude with a PC with Eagle isn’t the only requirement, you have to order samples, then push a board through the manufacturing process, build it up, etc etc. My general rule of thumb is you’re paying $100/hr for a tech (which is just a nice round number, nothing more) plus the same $100/hr for the sunk costs (a desk, electricity for the light over her desk, coffee and biscuit supply in the meal room, someone to come clean the loos every evening). So if they muck around for an hour reading the appnote, ordering some sample chips, creating a footprint, routing the board and hitting SEND to push it onto the next panel in the fab, drink another coffee while dunking their biscuit in it before heading to the loo for a sit and think for 10 mins, that’s now a $200 investment without actually fabbing the board. Doesn’t take much to add up… But I agree with you, the scale of their R&D with someone like MBI is hugely different, and that was my point. If you don’t “protect” the SF R&D you don’t have much to lose, so making things open will not lose little value.
I like your AVR Freaks analogy. At the moment I pitch myself between the two camps, even from a Gadgeteer sense. I love seeing what a new module can do. I hate paying what I percieve as “too much”, and I’ll go all AVR Freak and make my own design if I think I can do it “cheaper” while learning something. If it’s a “commodity” that I get no value from enhancing, then I will just buy the commodity item (like your ENC28).
Now, before anyone things that I would accuse anyone at MBI of being a snake, realize that I’m only suggesting that MBI is a BUSINESS, and always has been. That they are founded to make a profit should be a surprise to nobody. That they have taken valuable research that was provided by the community (and themselves… they’ve contributed a lot, from what I understand) should be a surprise to nobody.
We don’t complain when the business down the street takes gnucash and uses it to make a buck, or when an artist uses the gimp to make and sell artwork, why is this any different?
If MBI is successful with their new closed venture, then there is obviously a commercial market for what they’re doing, and any member of the community is welcome to take the open source hardware and use it as the basis of new, closed products, and make their own money, or indeed, the basis of new, open products!
A fair answer. A shame it took him so long to come out and give a clear answer.
You’re right. There really is nothing wrong with whatever choice they choose to make. However, I still don’t believe they will benefit from closing their core technology if they choose to go that route. For me, that Rostock printer already feels like the next big thing. If I were going to donate my time to 3D printing, I’d probably be moving away from MakerBot and over towards it. The impression that MBI gives is that they can manage just fine on their own from now on (thank you very much!).
Absolutely. Now, the market will decide whether they’re right. As it should be, in my opinion. They’ve thrown their fate at the feet of the commercial market, whether or not it was a good idea, we’ll see. If it works out for them, then great. If not, then I sure hope they own their decisions.
Having started my own company to work in this space, and talking things through with Ian in off-line threads, I came to the decision that none of the technology or IP that I’m going to be using to make one of my first projects is proprietary and/or would benefit from me, alone working on it.
I’m sort of going the GHI model, that I will have premium offerings, like my rovers can talk back to my cloud service (for instance), but I’m only going to (re)sell the pieces and parts to make it, as well as full assembled/tested rovers (for basically an assembly and testing charge + the kit). I really see the innovation coming in different uses and the expansion of the platform into other arenas as where I’m going to get “market share”. Other than custom PCBs that I may end up making/having made, all of the components are commercially available, any of the custom brackets/plates/etc are able to be milled/printed or even hand carved/cut with basic home garage/carpentry tools.
I do realize that there is quite a bit of up-front cost involved, although if i weren’t trying to get the first gen design out of the way up front and get the tooling in place to ramp up production of the custom pieces automated very soon after that, I would have gone straight to KickStarter with hand built prototypes, a much longer R&D and then even longer delivery time (which many people do and is perfectly fine in my opinion, although their time estimates end up being orders of magnitude off sometimes).
Granted that doesn’t work well for every business model, but for things like MakerBot, I’ve contributed to multiple 3D printer/cutter/etc projects and all of those are open sourcing just fine. It does take some seed money (although not hundreds of thousands with dozens of employees like some startups just seem to think they HAVE to have to get off the ground), I think I’ll put less than $10k in to start up, and again that’s only because I’ll end up buying about $7k worth of tools and prototyping parts (Gadgeteer, RC car parts, etc), the rest is legal fees to get an LLC setup, domain name registration, email licenses (only because I want Activesync to my phone for calendar/contacts and email for my sales/support accounts) and maybe some web development time if I outsource the build out of the cloud service to a friend instead of doing it myself).