Open collaborative design involves applying principles from the remarkable free and open-source software movement that provides a powerful new way to design physical objects, machines and systems. All information involved in creating the object or system is made available on the Internet – such as text, drawings, photographs and 3D computer-aided design (CAD) models – so that other people can freely re-create it, or help contribute to its further evolution. It is essentially the same principle that is used to progress scientific knowledge.
An essential element of this development model is a principle called 'copyleft'  (symbol:  ) which is a way of applying copyright to a creative work in a way that makes sure that anyone can freely use it or build upon it. Copyleft licenses usually state that derivative works must inherit the same terms, ensuring anything based on the original is freely available too. This principle means that 'copylefted' items – whether they are designs, text, artwork or computer code – are effectively gifted to humanity, adding to an ever increasing universal 'commons'. Because this principle is to the benefit of everyone, it completely changes the way that many people think about contributing their time and effort to this type of project. It already works very effectively with many high profile, successful software projects, so this is not merely wishful thinking.
Open collaborative design is a nascent field that has huge potential to radically alter the way we create goods, machines and systems – not only for personal items but all the way up to components of national or global infrastructure.
edit Why is this a good thing?
For the nascent field of open collaborative design, advanced open-source CAD software will allow anyone, not just designers and engineers, to easily create new or variant designs, choosing from a vast array of 'copylefted' components, assemblies and whole artefacts from the universal commons that they can make use of. This not only means that people can customise things for their own needs (and tastes) but should make the design process much more efficient and help avoid the huge duplication of effort that occurs in design and engineering currently.
These principles can apply to designing the simplest things that can be made by individuals, solutions for communities in the developing world, all the way up to complex large-scale systems of national or global infrastructure involving thousands of people. Because the designs are not closed or proprietary, people are encouraged to contribute knowing their involvement not only benefits themselves but anyone else might use the results of their efforts. It also means that designs will evolve far faster because of the huge amount of parallel development that is likely to occur.
Giving these designs physical form will become fast and easy due to emerging high-speed, flexible manufacturing techniques. As a result the open design ecosystem will effectively become an internet for physical items — and the impact on society is likely to be as great as the web has been with respect to information. One of the core components necessary for open collaborative design to truly take flight is an advanced free and open-source computer-aided design (CAD) program to allow anyone to easily generate new designs or customise existing ones. The program should include a special browser to enable finding and importing open-source components and machines from the 'universal commons' as well as analytical tools and 'physics engine' which allow a significant amount of simulation and testing to be done 'virtually', saving significant amounts of time when it comes to construction.
The availability of user-friendly open source CAD software will be essential to allow the widest number of people to engage in this creative activity, which should help create a more diverse ecosystem of objects, machines and solutions. There is no reason, with thoughtful implementation, why this software shouldn't be intuitive enough for children to use easily. It could explain mechanical and engineering principles along the way if the user wished, and also be a place to store detailed contextual development notes, wiki style, to help others understand the workings and decisions made.
The virtual nature of the designs mean that far-flung people via the internet can easily work together on the same design, either working individually on various sub-assemblies of the whole or collaborating directly on the same part. The restrictions of having to finding people local to yourself with similar interests and desires becomes much less of an issue.  At some point virtual designs such as CAD models, need to be turned into physical objects, which unfortunately isn't as straightforward as downloading software from a website. Building, testing and modifying physical designs requires effort, time and material cost, although with access to emerging flexible computer-controlled manufacturing techniques this complexity and effort can be drastically reduced.
Some of the ways that collaborative designs created on a computer can be physically forged range from getting your hands dirty and crafting it yourself, to sending the design, or at least parts of it, as an electronic file to an increasing number of flexible computer-controlled manufacturing systems such as rapid prototyping or advanced multi-axis CNC machines that can accurately create parts in 3D in a variety of materials. What is illustrated in this section is that the world of atoms is starting to catch up with the world of bits in terms of ease of control and duplication. Here are some of the increasing number of methods available to bring virtual designs to life...
edit Isn't this design by committee?
It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by committee... Won't this development model just create a herd of camels?
Not at all, because there is no single 'conclusion' that a design must arrive at (unlike a committee's decision). As with software, it might be that an original design is created by a single motivated individual, or a small group of people with a common purpose and shared vision, but beyond that the design can be evolved in multiple directions by other interested parties who might need a particular variation.
Many fine horses have been created within the open-source software world and it will be the same with design and engineering. So what about free riders? What happens when there are people who only take and never give anything back?
Well, nothing really. Contributors are not expecting a specific quid pro quo arrangement - they get plenty in return from using other things in the universal commons. If it is trivial to duplicate the results of someone's efforts then the more people who are able to make use of it, the better. The situation is not zero-sum — people are not going without as a direct result of someone else having it.
Consider free and open-source software where anyone with a computer and internet connection can download the Firefox web browser or OpenOffice office software for free. Most people will be consumers rather than contributors, but this is of no consequence.
After a while of enjoying the fruits of open-source, many people are only too happy to contribute in some way, giving back to the community that has provided for them. The fact that they are not required to do this, in many instances makes it more likely that people will do so, uncoerced. This is human nature. There are many names that this embryonic movement might go by:
- Open collaborative design
- Open design
- Free design
- Free and open design
- Open-source design
- Open-source hardware
- Open design and engineering
edit 'Open source' applied to the physical world
There is no reason why open source development methods currently used with many software projects cannot be applied to machines and systems in the physical world too. In fact physical objects are much more intuitive to understand than abstract computer code especially when viewed using 3D CAD that can show grouped sub-assemblies, exploded views, kinematics, cross-sections, supporting animations and notes. It is just that the freely available tools and infrastructure needed for this to be possible do not yet exist in a user-friendly and mature state needed for widespread adoption. All the technologies exist, they just need to be put together in the right way and refined.
The simplest method is to share information through a website on how to make things using text, diagrams and photographs. A more sophisticated way to collaborate on complex machinery and products would be to share computer-aided design assemblies much like project teams do in engineering and product design companies, knitted together with supporting information in an open and freely structured environment, much like a wiki .
There are certain barriers to overcome for open design when compared to software development where there are mature and widely used tools available, and the duplication and distribution of code cost next to nothing. Creating, testing and modifying physical designs is not quite as straightforward because of the effort and time required to create the physical artifact. However the physical world is catching up fast with the virtual world in this respect. edit What is the motivation to contribute?
These are some reasons why someone might want to contribute to the 'universal commons' of free and open designs:
- People can find other highly motivated and like-minded people to work with them on a project (wherever they might be in the world), enabling them to do things they couldn’t perhaps achieve alone, or to significantly speed up development
- They will be contributing to the 'open ecosystem' that freely offers designs that can be used no strings attached. After many years of perhaps using free and open designs many people will feel comfortable 'giving something back' - although they are under no obligation to do so.
- As an individual, using and building upon existing components and assemblies from the universal commons will allow people to create things of a complexity that they might not have otherwise been able to do, so they will be given a 'flying start' with whatever they build.
- A widely used design will give enormous satisfaction to the creator knowing that many other people are getting practical use or joy from it. As with software created in this way many people will give positive feedback and praise, and the creator(s) will enjoy great respect for their efforts
- Desired products and machines can be individually customised to a high degree
- Other people may evolve your design further, which could benefit you as they might improve it or make additions you hadn't thought of.
- The concept of copyleft (i.e. making sure that the details of the design are always available to everyone) changes the way people think about contributing their effort and time to creative open projects, as the contributions are for the benefit of everyone and anyone. Any contributions and improvements benefit all who have an interest in that project.
- Ultimately they will be similar reasons that motivate the people who currently contribute to open-source software and projects like Wikipedia.
edit Vast libraries of machines and components
With many people contributing to open design projects, as happens currently with software, a universal commons will emerge made up of vast libraries of designs for everything from components and sub-assemblies through to complete artefacts, machines and complex systems, available for anyone to download and incorporate into their own designs, or help evolve as part of a wider project.
As in software, it would be useful for components to be re-usable in the sense of being able to be incorporated in many different machine designs, so should be made as modular as possible – perhaps containing details of parameters vital to their function so that their scale and shape can be altered to fit. This will enable a huge reduction in duplication of effort and allow people to focus their efforts on creating new machines of increasing complexity, building on the work of others.
To aid the re-usability of components (and more complex parts) the CAD software could be able specify the vital dynamic functions of a component or assembly, so that it can easily be modified to be incorporated into new designs while ensuring it still works correctly. Perhaps not counting the scientific community, free and open-source software is where the modern concept of commons-based peer production really took flight. It is becoming very prominent in the world of software development with Linux, Firefox, Apache and OpenOffice being some high-profile examples.
Networks of people connected by the internet collaborate to develop useful software that others can freely benefit from. Not only is the software free to use, but so is the human-readable blueprint of the software, known as the source code . Anyone capable is free to customise or help improve open-source software, and making these changes available to others also encourages rapid development times, robustness and reduces duplication of effort.
People who doubt the viability of the principles outlined on this page in the real world only have to look to this sector to see amazing examples of what is being achieved already.
edit Others working within this field
- The MIT group behind Thinkcycle (open-source design for underserved communities and the environment) and Instructables which is a website to share step-by-step instructions for building things
- Adrian Bowyer - The RepRap project (an open-source rapid prototyping machine designed to be capable of self-replication)
- Terry Hancock - co-founder of Anansi Spaceworks that is attempting to use open source principles to develop space technology. His series of articles titled Towards a free matter economy make interesting reading. Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
...and there must be plenty more...
Wikipedia articles
The two articles above also list examples of existing open collaborative design projects. As this methodology becomes better known and the toolset more powerful then the projects undertaken in this manner will gradually increase in sophistication, capability and impact.
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