It could be. Check out the Global Village Construction Set - a project to open source designs for all the equipment you and thirty of your closest friends would need to check out of the rat race and live independently off-grid.
I’ll follow your link, and also comment to say that what OP mentions sounds like the possible future of Doctorow’s Makers.
What does that even mean? Manufacturing is messy, you have to mess with actual physical stuff, it’s not just bits. Having all the blueprints for a refrigerator is a long way from being able to actually build it economically.
Imo open source doesnt explicitly mean “you can build it yourself”
What it does stand for is that incase of issues it can be looked at and resolved. Be it finding the broken component, or looking at the designs and reporting the fault. Both of which improve the thing that is open sourced.
As an example : the framework laptop. Its partly open source, so in case of issues i could bring it to a repairshop which then can easily look at the designs, and figure the fault.
Or what i did with my home server sbc : get the schematics, figure out a manufactoring fault ( cracked solder on pci lane ), fix it and report it to the manufacturer ( which then investigated if it was a one off or if a solder type change was needed ).In other words, right to repair.
Depending on the angle, yes. If its for repairs, then yes. If its for product (manufactoring) improvements, then no. Im a software developer that often collaborates with other teams of open source software. I report, and sometimes fix, bugs so it improves the overal product for everyone. I wouldnt put that under right to repair, as it has nothing to do with repairing it yourself and more with improving a product for everyone by tackling a problem with the product at the source.
I mean, what is fixing a bug if not repairing the software?
Reporting the bug without fixing it is not repairing the software :p
This is a topic about manufactoring, thats a different thing as its more based on processes and blueprints
Having a blueprint skips the “development” phase. Then you make instructions on how to build the stuff and be open to support through issues. From experience it works.
More specifically, I have a generator. It is incased in plastic. It stopped working and it is not designed for large hands. My dad pulled out a generator that is 60 years old and it runs like a charm. Brigs and Stratton motor. Everything is on the outside easy to work on. Why can’t someone reinvent it and make it open source.
Spend a bit more money and buy a generator that is easy to repair.
Briggs is the best boiii!
In the heavy infrastructure/manufacturing sector it sorta is already. Or maybe I should say it’s pretty easy to reverse engineer at least to a given point. You might not know exactly what is going on in the firmware level of your PLC but you know exactly what PLC to buy and can see the user domain code running on it.
The thing is unless you are doing system integration or repair there isn’t much use for that knowledge.
For example?
Feasible how? It’s easily physically feasible. It’s not feasible in a capitalistic society though.
Odd since most of what I do at my job is produce open source code.
Which aspect of a capitalist society makes this infeasible?
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