Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Technocrat

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 09:20:00 -0700 2008

Science.

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RepRap is an attempt to create a Fused Deposition Modeling engine, in other words a "3-D printer", that can make solid objects. Its designs are in Open Source. The design is getting to the point that a prototype unit can begin to replicate some of its own components.

However, this has led to the assertion that RepRap can replicate itself. While belied within the project's own web site, this is so oft-repeated in the press that the project's developers must be supporting it in their PR and interviews. For the sake of honesty and scientific integrity, I really wish they'd stop.

This might be a more appropriate statement for the press:

RepRap is potentially capable of replicating its skeleton, without any of the electronics that make it work.

While it would be possible to replicate macro-scale magnetic and conductive electronic components with some design beyond that currently being considered, the production of a single semiconductor diode junction at macro scale is substantially farther away, not to mention the nano-scale integrated circuits that are essential to the device.

The project's espoused concept of wealth without any money is something that Open Source has achieved as far as software and other data-based items are concerned, and the potential for radical economic change should certainly be considered, but we're still decades or more away from having "Open Source cars". Consider that to achieve "wealth without money", one must not only be able to manufacture devices, but to acquire the raw materials necessary to produce them. This will require movement away from the current petroleum based FDM materials. And such acquisition must be carried out with some consideration to its consequences and the rights of others. There is also the disposition of the intentional and unintentional outputs of the process to consider. These problems require much thought.

It's great that such a device is being worked on in Open Source. But let's please be honest with our claims.
- Bruce

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Charles E Hill

Thu Jun 05 10:04:56 -0700 2008
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Actually, scientists have successfully made organic LEDs using a thick film process.

Thick film is a process commonly used for laying down conductive, non-conductive (dielectric) and resistor layers. It is just a fancy way of saying "silk screen", just with special "inks". It is common in the automotive and space industries, where ceramic substrates are used in place of fiberglass.

Advances have also been made in thick film CMOS transistors.

We are getting there, but you're right about RepRap. It is a plastic fab and the articles and headlines are very misleading about what it really can do. Honesty would go a long way in their claims.

Hmmm...they aren't looking for VC or grant money, are they? That would explain the misleading hype.

[LINK: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V01-41S5CMG-4&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cb799e7b6bb15c25a4de628511841b97]

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 10:14:29 -0700 2008
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Try redoing that link. It first asked for my wife's college ID, and then when I got off of the college proxy, it wouldn't work.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Charles E Hill

Thu Jun 05 10:21:31 -0700 2008
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Wow. All of the editors, including the "raw html", insisted on escaping the ampersands in the link, totally hosing it. I just pasted it in the bottom.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 10:25:11 -0700 2008
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Well, http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.2 says that's what I should be doing. But I think I'm doing it twice in some cases.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Charles E Hill

Thu Jun 05 10:34:55 -0700 2008
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That was it. There were && in there that were messing it up.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

President4242

Thu Jun 05 10:22:21 -0700 2008
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Isn't it theoretically possible that one can design a low-melt point conductive polymer? And thus, wouldn't you have a "plastic" capable of designing macro scale bare circuit boards with?

Once you have that, NPN transistors are pretty easy- and if you've got that, you've got your electronics.

I'll agree it might be 10-20 years of scientific research away- but we used to have macro-scale computers. They were huge and low power, but they DID WORK. A peripheral that replicates itself isn't that outlandish at all. You just might need to build a barn for the output is all.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Charles E Hill

Thu Jun 05 10:41:41 -0700 2008
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Well, currently there are several metallic, conductive pastes and liquids that are used. Maellable at room temperature, they are cured with heat. The ones I am familiar with, from my time in the automotive and satellite manufacturing industry, cure and very high temps. Think 3000+ degrees.

If they could find stuff that could be cured with the equivalent of a hot hair dryer, it would work.

I know the military (Army?) was using powdered metals bonded with epoxy, sprayed in layers. I've seen stories of truck-based units that could make auto parts like axels and leaf springs in the field. It looks like a big ink-jet printer, just using a two-component epoxy and finely ground metal particles as "inks".

Fascinating stuff.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

President4242

Thu Jun 05 16:07:26 -0700 2008
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Hmm, now that you mention it, I remember back in the late 1980s using a *powder* to repair a hole in a radiator- just mix with the water and at 212 F it turned into liquid solder- which would go to the hole and plug it.

Lead isn't the best conductor though...I'd think there would be better synthetic polymers out there for this.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Charles E Hill

Thu Jun 05 16:14:12 -0700 2008
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There are better and other paste conductors than lead. Depending on your application is what you use. When dealing with satellite stuff we used gold solder. Actual colloidal gold, in small bottles, kept locked in a safe.

Other materials were available depending on the application.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

rubycodez

Fri Jun 06 04:57:39 -0700 2008
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how would an NPN transistor be "easy" once you had a conductive plastic? doping to get excess free charge/hole carriers might not even be possible

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

brouhaha

Thu Jun 05 12:40:07 -0700 2008
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RepRap is potentially capable of replicating its skeleton, without any of the electronics that make it work.

Or even the electromechanical components, such as motors.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 13:59:17 -0700 2008
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"However, this has led to the assertion that RepRap can replicate itself.belied within the project's own web site, this is so oft-repeated in the press that the project's developers must be supporting it in their PR and interviews. For the sake of honesty and scientific integrity, I really wish they'd stop."

Speaking as a member of the Reprap team we have always been very clear about what we mean when we say "replication". You can find the terms and limitations very clearly stated in very clear language by Dr Bowyer in the Genesis link in the philosophy section of the website. The link is given here.

There has been no effort whatsoever by either Dr Bowyer or the team to mislead anybody in terms of what we mean by self-replication. I fear that the journalists, pressed as they always are for by word counts and time pressure fall foul of Einstein's dictum...

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.

...by making things just a touch simpler than possible in an attempt to reach their audience.

In my opinion, it is asking a bit much to expect an exegesis of von Neumann's concept of self-replication and his Universal Constructor every time someone mentions a Reprap machine replicating itself in order to allay the ruffled feathers of every person possessed of a personal, ideosyncratic definition of what self-replication means.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

GuyFawkes

Thu Jun 05 14:24:06 -0700 2008
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Speaking as a member of the Reprap team we have always been very clear about what we mean when we say "replication".

Yes, of course you have, which is why it says at http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome and I quote...

"RepRap makes its first complete working replicated copy!"

"makes" not "manufactures a few minor plastic components which then have to be assembled by a human being" and "complete working replicated copy" just in case there was any doubt that there is a most clear claim being made that the machine fabricates and assembles itself 100%

Incidentally, not wishing to rain on your parade or anything, I'm not impressed, not only no mention of Candyfab, but you didn't exactly create or develop Polymorph either, and you studiously ignore all the stereolithography and commercial plastic and metal 3D printers, not all of which are proprietary closed source.

The fact is a common or garden milling machine with "open source" control electronics and a copy of EMC will come a damn sight closer to being a self replicting machine than Rep Rap.

Colour me unimpressed.

This is not meant as a flame, it is an honest and forthright opinion.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 14:58:06 -0700 2008
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""makes" not "manufactures a few minor plastic components"

I haven't got a lot of emotional energy tied up in the Darwin design, mostly because I'm working on a second generation design which I hope with be a lot easier to assemble. That said, I will take issue with your "a few minor plastic components" slam. The printed parts for a Reprap Darwin weigh a shade under 3 lbs. Darwin weighs, depending on the stepper motors selected, between about 12 and 15 lbs, total, which means that by weight Darwin is printing 20-25% of itself.

By value, however, the non-printed parts of Darwin cost maybe $250. If you take the STL files for the Darwin printed parts set to a commercial prototyping firm you'll soon discover that you've got right at 80 cubic inches of printed parts plus a substantial volume of support material. Just taking the actual volume of the parts sans support material, however, and multiply it by what is the usual tariff of $30/cubic inch charged by such firms and you'll find yourself with a quote for more than $2,400 for those "few minor plastic components" to use your happy phrase. Take them to a CNC shop and you'll first find that several of them literally can't be milled by CNC machines without a redesign and the bill will be substantially higher.

I find myself bemused as to why you'd feel that we had to mention Candyfab, of all projects, or that we should have developed polycapralactone (PCL or Polymorph). Was it presumptuous not to have delivered a long exploration of the history of commercial and open source 3D printing techniques as well? Where are you going with all that?

In any case, hey, if you're not impressed, you're not impressed.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

GuyFawkes

Thu Jun 05 15:27:30 -0700 2008
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That said, I will take issue with your "a few minor plastic components" slam.

So you're impressed by the thing because it makes 20% of itself by weight, I guess that's one metric, but a CNC mill can make 95% of itself by weight, and anyway, the issue was the CLEAR intimation that the thing replicated itself, when little could be further from the truth.

So let's go on to your second point...

Take them to a CNC shop and you'll first find that several of them literally can't be milled by CNC machines without a redesign and the bill will be substantially higher.

Unfortunately, you just trod on my territory, and without wishing to put too fine a point on it the scenario you are describing here and claiming as a plus for the machine is in fact known industry wide as the classic result of piss poor design. Deadly serious, an absolute classic symptom.

I find myself bemused as to why you'd feel that we had to mention Candyfab

I as actually attempting to be kind in mentioning Candyfab and not mentioning Fab@home.

Where are you going with all that?

In any case, hey, if you're not impressed, you're not impressed.

Well, since you ask...

I look at that picture of mummy and baby, and.....

... and... look, I'm not trying to insult anyone, but engineering is my trade, and I look at that thing and honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry.

God knows prototypes (and I've seen a few, including the original CD player) always look like crap and like anything but the production job, but my god man, there are prototypes, and then there are those times you walk into the workshop one morning and realise you've been labouring on Frankenstein's abortion, and you kill it, both for your own reputation and sanity, because the one thing it screams is that it's creator either never knew anything about engineering or had a brain fart and completely lost it, and I've been there..... you don't photograph the bloody thing and stand next to it smiling.... mebbe things are different in academia...

A parts bill of 250 bucks is no excuse, 25 bucks and an old epson inkjet maybe, plus a few hours fiddling (labour is too big a word) and maybe, just maybe you can get away with it.

Heath Robinson would be turning in his grave.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

GuyFawkes

Thu Jun 05 15:32:55 -0700 2008
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Unfortunately, you just trod on my territory, and without wishing to put too fine a point on it the scenario you are describing here and claiming as a plus for the machine is in fact known industry wide as the classic result of piss poor design. Deadly serious, an absolute classic symptom.

Perhaps I should explain.

This is like the classic example of the engineering student designing a $5,000 bearing for a machine, while the engineer will reach for the Timken catalogue.

It is a FUNDAMENTAL and INVIOLATE principle of engineering that ("show" pieces such as the "nested cubes" aside... http://bp0.blogger.com/_aNjK3CTQ0DE/RnxDsObqJ_I/AAAAAAAAAOk/Cv6P6qyUrUE/s1600-h/06220707.jpg)

NO component should require complex operations to manufacture and therefore expense.

This is ALWAYS a classic symptom of piss poor design.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 16:21:07 -0700 2008
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"the machine is in fact known industry wide as the classic result of piss poor design."

LOL! Fine words. Good use of glittering generality.

"A parts bill of 250 bucks is no excuse, 25 bucks and an old epson inkjet maybe, plus a few hours fiddling (labour is too big a word) and maybe, just maybe you can get away with it."

Well, as they say, talk's cheap. Reprap Darwin, for all it's faults, works after a fashion and is putting out higher quality printed objects with each passing day. Conjectural machines made with $25 and an old Epson ink jet aren't worth the breath wasted on them till they're up and running.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

GuyFawkes

Fri Jun 06 01:45:44 -0700 2008
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I'm done wasting words on you, astroturf away.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 18:08:06 -0700 2008
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Forrest,

Thanks for writing. Upon reading your message, I followed the Dr. Boyer philosophy link. I also visited the page referred to by our user GuyFawkes.

I am distressed to find that the very first sentence a new visitor to your web site would read is, as GuyFawkes complained, "RepRap makes its first complete working replicated copy!" Sure, this is misleading the press when the reality is that the system produced a (by some measures small) portion of the components of the overall device. The philosophy link makes it clear what's going on, but only at the end of two pages of dreams well beyond your current endeavors.

The project is an admirable achievement. I think you cheapen it by inflating its achievements. And sure, the press distorts everything any of us say. They've done so to me for 10 years now. That's why we have to be extra-careful with them.

Bruce

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 18:32:47 -0700 2008
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I think that to be fair you have to cut Dr Bowyer a little slack. You can see from his philosophy page that he is very clear, if a little wordy in places, about what we are doing. I know that for the past month several of the core team members scattered all over to planet have been trying to get everything running for this rollout at Cheltenham. That the press releases didn't get much thought is not particularly surprising, given all the other preparations they were making.

When the Reprap community talks amongst itself about replication they are all aware of what is meant. This is just about the first time that a much wider audience has been addressed. The mismatch between the in-group vocabulary and what is understood by the rest of the world is obviously there. When you don't talk that much to the rest of the world because you are so focussed on what you are doing, I expect that communications difficulties like what you outlined aren't that unexpected.

Certainly, I know Dr Bowyer fairly well after two and one-half years. He's not the sort of guy who deliberately sets out to mislead. Indeed, if anything he probably goes too far in the opposite direction. He's not a flim-flam man like so many self-promoting people you find in academia. When you get right down to it that's why I like working with him.

Bottom line is that if there is a mischaracterisation of what Reprap does, bet on it having not been deliberate. Given much of what comes out of academia these days, I realise that that may be difficult to buy. Trust me, though, Adrian Bowyer is very old-fashioned about that sort of thing.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 18:44:41 -0700 2008
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I accept that Dr. Bowyer is sincere. In the U.S. we had a Dr. Molner, perhaps not as pragmatic but who probably started out to be sincere. He left a generation asking where their flying cars are, and some unhappy venture capitalists. It would be a pity for Dr. Bowyer to find himself unintentionally in Molner's shoes.

I have had the able assistance of a public relations professional during much of my career in Open Source, Ms. Jill Ratkevic. Perhaps there is someone similar you can find in the university?

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 19:17:24 -0700 2008
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Whew, that's quite some distance beyond offensive. Dr. Bowyer is about as far as you can get from Paul Moller and still be on the planet. This project has also been underway in earnest for about 30-36 months, not 25 years.

I initially commented on your editorial because I though you might have misunderstood what Reprap was trying to accomplish and that clarification might help matters. I see from your ham-handed attempt to characterise Adrian Bowyer as some sort of latter day Paul Moller, however, that I was mistaken. I think we've gone about as far as we need to with this. Pity.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 19:47:50 -0700 2008
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I did not mean to offend, I am sorry, but I am also very sincerely doubtful and there is probably no way to keep you from being offended by my doubt. "Wealth without money" will take more than 25 years to achieve, if your team or any of its far descendents can pull it off at all. I see it as is no less ambitious a claim, no more sure of achievement than Moller's flying car. And even if it can be brought about, allocating that wealth into everyone's hands, rather than only the hands of the rich, will be no small fight.

    Thanks

    Bruce

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Thu Jun 05 20:08:25 -0700 2008
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I am not offended by your doubt. Any reasonable person can have doubts. I certainly do. I am, however, deeply offended by your attempt to blacken the name of a good and gifted man by associating pairing him with a life-long confidence man like Moller.

As to your "wealth without money" gripe. The phrase is a bit of an insider joke in the team which is sometimes "wealth without money" and other times becomes "wealth without much money" when the price of making a Darwin slips out of control.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 20:33:23 -0700 2008
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OK. Well, perhaps the problem is that I actually gave Moller the benefit of the doubt. He has been a successful professor at the local university, which nobody notices for what happened with the car. Maybe he was sincere and not a con-man. But I see this will make me no friends, so allow me to withdraw those two messages about Moller. Should I delete them?

    Thanks

    Bruce

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Uncle Entity

Thu Jun 05 23:43:10 -0700 2008
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Humans went from powered flight to having people on the moon in a person's lifetime, I don't think Moller was really too far out there in this context.

It's simply a matter of weight ratios really.

As Guy has pointed out CNC machines can reproduce their mechanical parts so is it too far of a jump to assume that the electroics are that far off?

The future's wide open...

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

GuyFawkes

Fri Jun 06 02:47:19 -0700 2008
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Bruce, do you know who "Forrest Higgs" is?

He types like he is a postgrad on this project, while he is astroturfing this project.

Dr Forrest Higgs

http://uk.youtube.com/user/ForrestHiggs

http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/PeopleMain

CEO of Brosis Innovations and not too far away from you. Text mining software.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070122000459/http://brosisinnovations.com/main_files/main.htm

On Open Source http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2007/view/e_sess/10239

I don't like, as a principle, digging into people's history, but this guy isn't exactly a shrinking violet, unless he is astroturfing technocrat like some love struck post grad defending his prof.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Svend Haugaard Sørensen

Sat Jun 07 18:16:40 -0700 2008
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I have been following the RepRap project since it was started.

So I have a good understanding of they mean when they say 'self-replicating'.

And the problem it that ordinary people automatic

think human-like self-replicating, but the correct understanding is

virus-like 'self-replicating'.

Like a virus the first machine is very simple, and it don't do mush work.

And it 'tricks' humans into assemble it, like a virus 'tricks' a cell.

But succeeding generation become more advanced, the next will be able to

print it own circuit board, and the next maybe it own motors or print motor

making tools.

Printing of circuit boards have been demonstrated with prototypes and

your can read about them on the project blog if your go some time back.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Thomas Lord

Thu Jun 05 14:19:47 -0700 2008
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That's a reasonable critique on its surface but for you claim that open source has achieved "wealth without money." As usual, you are just eliminating consideration of labor. And that's not surprising, given the immoral ways in which labor for open source has been collected ever since the creation of "open source". It's not your fault per se, afaict. I have the impression you didn't grok who you were across the table from.

-t

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Thu Jun 05 18:17:32 -0700 2008
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Tom,

We've had this argument before. I still maintain that most Open Source contributors are happy to share the wealth they produce under the rules imposed by the licensing they choose. They are so free to walk away at any time. Since they do not, surely they accept the deal that they themselves have written. They are not bound by contracts, they bind others. There is no promise of wages to keep them around. There is only their enthusiasm.

I observe that the system has indeed not worked for you. I continue to see this as a problem of personal interaction with those who have attempted to pay you rather than a broader problem.

Bruce

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Thomas Lord

Thu Jun 05 19:21:48 -0700 2008
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This intersects with an off-blog email thread we have. It intersects with some shared state that, frankly, I think is not something we can get into here without potentially incurring serious liabilities (not liabilities that should be upheld but alleged liabilities that would be costly and difficult to put aside in court).

That said: You are arguing from a presumption of intent and understanding by volunteers and I am arguing that such presumption is both unsupported by objective evidence and that, regardless, such a presumption is exemplary of exploitative unprofessionalism by the open source industrial complex, even if the assumptions about intent and understanding are true.

So there we are.

-t

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Uncle Entity

Fri Jun 06 00:29:40 -0700 2008
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OK, value is subjective.

The only way to determine a person's subjective valuation is through direct observation of their actions because internal value judgments are cardinal, not an ordinal list that can be directly compared to other individuals.

Bruce's observations are based on the fact that people expose their preferences through their actions—if they didn't prefer to work on some FOSS project then their behavior would demonstrate this.

As leisure is a good unto itself so either people don't consider working in a volunteer capacity as 'leisure' or the disutility of labor theory is bunk.

Now to your thoughts on the 'exploitative unprofessionalism by the open source industrial complex'. These people make money off others leisure activities, oh noes.

According to this theory any business that makes money from people's unpaid activities are exploitative like...the gay hating Boy Scouts. Or pretty much any auto parts company that will kick down a couple bucks if you sent them a picture of your car in the winner's circle sporting one of their decals. Yeah, you thought those hot rodders put all the little stickers all over their quarter panels just to tempt thieves, eh?

When you look at the 'objective evidence' under the spotlight of the disutility of labor theory you might find that the only exploitation taking place is by the folks who wish to limit their leisure options for purely personal/political reasons.

I know we as a people haven't really worked through the whole prohibitionist thing but when you look at the objective evidence...

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

zotz

Fri Jun 06 07:53:27 -0700 2008
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I tend to take this sort of look at things for myself...

Before I knew about Free Software or before it really took off, I used too look at software offers on pages in programming magazines and drool. (From memory) C compilers for $200 plus, various libraries for multiple hundreds, 386 unix packages for good money, and so on. I could have easily paid thousands getting things I wanted to muck about with.

Today, we are making these things for ourselves and each other. If I compare what I put in to what I get out, I am ahead on that metric.

Now, the big players in the Free Software business space might be being a bit hoggish and not sending some on to the coders, but that does not mean that those coders cannot be better off with things as they stand than as they would be without Free Software.

all the best,

drew

why we have professionals

Thomas Lord

Fri Jun 06 10:29:31 -0700 2008
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Today I was reviewing the ways in which the Fedora project solicits volunteers. I chased through the links that pertain to contributions from graphic artists.

A hobbiest who wants to toss of some art and contribute to Fedora must sign a contributor license agreement. That agreement gives Red Hat non-exclusive, perpetual rights to display, distribute, modify, and sublicense the work. It gives Red Hat full license to any possible design patent on the art.

We're encouraged to contribute to projects such as Fedora as a critical step in developing an open source career yet required, in such contributions, to behave unprofessionally by giving up all of those rights without any compensation.

This reminds me quite a bit of some of the worst abuses of the traditional recording industry. In that industry, artists are often promised a theoretical return for giving up such rights but that return offer constructed in such a way that more or less never actually materializes. The deal the traditional recording industry offers is "Yeah, you do this work basically for free. But then you can get gigs. So, that's the cost of the right to work."

The concept of professionalism is there, in our culture, largely to find that form of exploitation. It needs some application to situations like the Fedora project.

-t

why we have professionals

Charles E Hill

Fri Jun 06 11:06:30 -0700 2008
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What's the issue? It is a non-exclusive license. Basically, RH doesn't want someone to contribue something then have them pop back in later and revoke their rights to use. That would play absolute hell with trying to get anything done. Heck, you did start out with "A hobbiest who wants..."

Actually, it sounds a lot like a BSD for art. You give over rights to sublicense, modify, use (display) and distribute. I'd say GPL if any modifications to the art were licensed by to the original artist under the same terms.

You are getting compensation, just not denominated in dollars. You're getting an improved Fedora distribution that you can use, modify, distribute and sublicense in return.

Yes, I know people can't pay their bills with alternative compensation. That is why it is done either on the side as a hobby, or they need to wrangle a job as a FOSS programmer/artist. Those jobs do exist, as Red Hat, Novell, IBM and others pay some people to work on FOSS project. No, they aren't common. I wish they were.

why we have professionals

Thomas Lord

Fri Jun 06 12:03:52 -0700 2008
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RHAT (et al.) can not exist in anything close to their current form without aggressively soliciting volunteer labor. They are not businesses. They are modern slaveholders.

-t

why we have professionals

Uncle Entity

Fri Jun 06 11:33:40 -0700 2008
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I guess it really comes down to what you mean by 'compensation'.

If people want other people to use their code and it gets included into the main distro then they are suitably compensated for their work.

If they want a monetary return for their labor then they're probably barking up the wrong tree. I've heard rumors that there are companies out there that pay people to code, it might be a better use of their time to determine if these rumors are true than spending time on a project that won't guarantee them a dime in compensation for their time.

Now if someone has a dream to spend their life jetting around the world giving speeches and spreading the word of how wonderful this whole FOSS thing is to heads of state and whatnot then it may be of some benefit for them to start off small by helping out the Fedora project and becoming known within this community before embarking on their own independent project or becoming a critical contributer to an already existing project.

You know, networking and all that.

As for the agreement that the art becomes the property of the Fedora project, I would blame copyright laws for that before I went out on a limb and claimed it was a conspiracy to strip away some naive young pup's rights.

Any work that is produced by an individual is automatically copyrighted (copywritten?) by default under the current law. If you were to contribute some art to Fedora and they didn't get copyright or at least permission to use it then they are opening themselves up to a lawsuit.

Since they have non-exclusive rights to the work this doesn't even infringe on the artists rights to use the work in any other way they see fit. All Fedora is really getting is a guarantee that they won't throw a hissy fit and try to take their ball and go home.

Someone who objected to this simply just has to keep their art and go find some other way to pad out their resume.

Like I said before, if you show up to a hot rod shop in a POS rusted-out Datsun they probably aren't going to even look at your resume before it gets filed away. You don't like the job requirements then you can always go work for some shop that specializes in insurance repair and make a decent living.

Always have to throw in a car analogy...

I still don't see the exploitation though, if the contributers didn't think that they were better off from working for a project then they wouldn't do it. I really don't think anyone is promising fame and fortune like the recording industry example would suggest and they certainly aren't promising anything other that a warm fuzzy feeling from a job well done.

Who really seeks out an open source career anyway? I mean you give your product away for free. Not a very sustainable business model it would seem.

Can always make it up in volume though, huh?

why we have professionals

Thomas Lord

Fri Jun 06 12:17:04 -0700 2008
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It's a bunch of nonsense and misplaced theory.

If those firms want to enjoy long-term profits from open source then they need to help create a healthy ecology. In a healthy ecology, professional contributions are remunerated with hard, cold cash. That these firms squirm and wiggle away from that is a serious flaw in their business models.

Free software licensing and similar terms are no obstacle to professional exchanges. Meanwhile, their squirming and wiggle are, in my opinion, liability inducing.

It's that simple.

-t

why we have professionals

Uncle Entity

Fri Jun 06 13:16:17 -0700 2008
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Well, the body of nonsense and misplaced theory that I draw from also states that businesses that are unsustainable will eventually go bankrupt to be replaced by businesses that are.

I also don't think if RH has a slave rebellion that FOSS will disappear.

I now wonder what your proposed solution to this dilemma would be, a free rider tax?

why we have professionals

Thomas Lord

Fri Jun 06 14:01:13 -0700 2008
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I now wonder what your proposed solution to this dilemma would be, a free rider tax?

No. Rather: leadership in adopting a professional stance and making paid offers rather than soliciting volunteers.

From my perspective it's easy to see how RHAT et al. wound up in their current position. When RMS released GCC and GDB for the first time I happened to work in an IBM-sponsored lab with many ties to the capital community. Those releases were scandal and the topic of many, er, interesting discussions precisely because those releases destroyed the value of some then-current VC investments. The business folks around the lab were quite interested in this phenomenon not because it had taken money out of their pockets per se, but because it took money out of the pockets of people operating along the same lines as big money. Cygnus gained VC favor, in my opinion, in no small part as an experiment in how best to kill the free software movement (with kindness, of course). They succeeded, at least by half.

-t

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Uncle Entity

Fri Jun 06 00:40:40 -0700 2008
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Oh, make that Bruce's observations are presumably based off these facts.

ho boy

rubycodez

Fri Jun 06 05:49:03 -0700 2008
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if one really wanted to make a "self replicating" machine to give manufacturing power to the world, it wouldn't be thing that lays down plastic to (claimed) 0.004" repeatable accuracy. It would be thing that could produce objects in any metal (or softer materials as needed) to 0.001" or less. working in a space of oh say a yard square by a foot tall.

with something like that magic mysterious metal object making machine (*snicker*) you could even make the machines to do tasks like extrude copper wire and wind motors/generators and turn metal rods and fab pc boards and stamp parts and housings ....and yes it could replicate most of itself and create the machines to replicate any parts of itself not directly replicated.

after a few decades, such a magic mystery machine would come down in value as better models made and could even be purchased used on some global auction site (*chortle*) for less than a few thousand dollars and donated along with "knowledge to operate and make" to some third world place to jump start their own mystery machine replication process so they could create wealth and raise their standard of living.

And get this, the magic mystery machine could do its civilization changing/making awesomeness WITH OR WITHOUT COMPUTER CONTROL. *gasp*

bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!! I should do stand-up.

All without mugshots of academics standing next to a toy capable of only making toys, spouting lies that such a toy is "self replicating" when it can't even cut the metal rods that make up the bulk of its mass or extrude copper or cut pc boards from dual-clad stock, all without wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of my taxes on a completely unnecessary and unneeded clap-trap tinkertoy toymaker.

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Forrest Higgs

Tue Jun 10 05:33:19 -0700 2008
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Dr. Bowyer, director of the Reprap project, emailed me this morning and asked me to post this on his behalf. He'd have made his own post save it appears that your "new user" procedure for getting a login and password isn't working this morning. Thanks.

************************************************************

I don't wish to ruffle the feathers of such sensitive flowers as seem to
post here (by mixing metaphors, if nothing else), but many of them seem
lamentably ignorant of the life sciences. I fear from that evidence
that they were were not taught biology properly (or even at all),
possibly because of some atavistic superstition.

"...how few of the machines are there which have not been produced
systematically by other machines? But it is man that makes them do
so. Yes; but is it not insects that make many of the plants
reproductive, and would not whole families of plants die out if their
fertilisation was not effected by a class of agents utterly foreign to
themselves? Does anyone say that the red clover has no reproductive
system because the humble bee (and the humble bee only) must aid and
abet it before it can reproduce? No one. The humble bee is a part of
the reproductive system of the clover."

Samuel Butler, Erewhon, 1872

My initial idea for RepRap was to make a replicator that was a
symbiont with people, giving them goods in return for being helped to
replicate, just as flowers give insects nectar in return for being
helped to replicate. I did it like that because I knew that that was
an ESS (Maynard-Smith evolutionarily-stable strategy) for both species.

Plant pollen needs its wings to be of any use at all.

But plant pollen grows no wings.

But that's all right because it uses wings from another replicator.

RepRap needs its steel rods to be of any use at all.

But RepRap grows no steel rods.

But that's all right because it uses steel rods from another replicator.

And all of us would be unable to post here if we did not obtain eight
of our twenty amino acids (that's 40% of those important parts needed to
make us) from other replicators...

Editorial: RepRap vs. Reality

Bruce Perens

Tue Jun 10 07:23:26 -0700 2008
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I apologize for the bug that hit Dr. Boyer when he tried to create a login this morning, An automatic report of the bug was in my email, and I've fixed it.

I feel this analogy doesn't quite fit. The plant requires the bee to carry external information that is part of the replication process. The replication of the plant, while requiring the message carried by the bee, includes the message, not the bee.

And again, I do not mean to belittle the achievement of Dr. Boyer and his team. I just think that the RepRap doesn't yet aproach the facility of the plant in replicating itself, but is spoken of that way in the press. To achieve plant-like completeness in replication would bee a tremendous achievement :-)