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What does it mean to open source the world?
3 comments- IT TOPICS:Linux, Management
Martin MC Brown had an interesting post today about applying the open source model to aspects of life other than software. He's having trouble with a replacement for his car, and made the point that only the manufacturer has the power to solve his problem. Such is the nature of proprietary systems, where a single entity controls the system/data/product/process. But if another entity was able to take over portions of the system, he might get a solution faster.
Why is this? Because the car manufacturer apparently has better things to do. Two months have passed, and still no solution has been forthcoming. It's clearly not a priority for them. But if the information necessary to fix the problem was available generally to the public, a smaller entity might find it worthwhile to step in and serve the niche market vexed by the problem.
Ok, so this is an interesting concept, but what does it really mean to open source something that isn't software? First, let's clarify some basic points. Two key aspects of the open source model are 1) the availability of the data that describes the system, and 2) the ability to use that data to modify the system. Will this ever be applied to car replacement parts?
I met Bob Waldie at the LinuxWorld Conference in Boston this year - a very interesting fellow who is busy exploring how to apply the open source model to computer hardware. Bob believes that a whole new wave of innovation will come out of the concept. His company, OpenGear, is involved with an open source project to provide KVM over IP. This includes management software and some open source KVM hardware reference designs. The idea is to provide hardware reference designs that can be adopted and modified by any interested parties. In other words, open source hardware.
What I like about this case is that the work they are doing at OpenGear is specific and tangible, but the implications are huge. It's a baby step toward a new arena of potential innovation. Software is not hardware, of course, so it will probably take a period of trial and error to work out the differences. Bob admits, for example, that they are still working out what the licensing really means.
As Bob told me recently, "Individuals and firms now see the abundance of commercial success that the open source model has delivered to many firms. It is responsible for refreshing the software industry and delivering real value to customers... and I foresee they will soon start to apply this model to a host of other domains, hardware being one."
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