I had an idea. I want to share this idea with you but it would be nice if I could retain credit for it. I want you to take this idea and make something new of it, whatever you like, except don't make any money out of it without checking with me first. It would be nice if whatever you created could be shared in the same way as this idea is.
My idea originated as a phrase: "Open source product design". Open source is a phrase relating to the way in which programmers develop software by sharing the source code, changing and improving it iteratively while avoiding the irritations of copyright law so treasured by big business. Product Design is, a) the pursuit of creating real world objects and systems; b) my degree. Having a love of both phrases I would like to combine them.
If programmers can collaborate internationally and create operating systems that out-do all others in functionality and economy, why can't designers do the same with products? I went on a search to find out how the programmers did it. I ended up at the Creative Commons website. There I found the very license that would allow me to protect my idea in the way that I want. Here it is:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.So why not with products?
Comments and queries welcomed.
Some rights reserved.
Some more thoughts on how this could realistically function:
When using the analogy of open source programming, it is obvious that this is a little more easy to implement than open source PD would seem for reasons which I will later explain. It is, I believe, viable however. This is because the reasoning that germinated the idea of open source programming is the same, and probably more pertinent, in the field of design. The two are analogous, and to understand the latter, we must study the former.
Why was the open source programming movement needed? It was Richard Stallman who recognised the poisonous nature of an industry which jealously guarded its 'secrets', discouraging the sharing of ideas and forcing the user to be controlled by those who wrote their software. Software houses control the use of their products with license agreements - that huge legal document that you skip over when you install software - that prohibit the redistribution of the program. In my opinion this attitude grossly inhibits our ability to develop new ideas. Stallman's idea was to create a community that did not operate on this principal. Instead developers would publish software with the source code complete, and allow, nay encourage, other developers to customize and improve it.
This is the idea that appeals to me about open source PD. We waste soo much time and effort researching and dissecting things which other designers, identical to ourselves, have done umpteen times before. This is hardly an efficient use of clever, creative people's skills. Years can be spent working around patents, ideas that other people have copyrighted for the very reason that they are good ideas, but a practice that inherently stops the ideas having their potentially great effect on our world. More importantly however, why can't designers share their ideas at the design stage, before production? This would be the equivalent of our source code in a product design analogy.
Source code is the language which programmers speak. When software is created, it is written in source code which is then translated into computer language, packaged and distributed to our homes, where our computers read that language and translate it into our real world experience of the software. In order to change the software, developers need the source code. This is not difficult in the world of computers. Software is not hard, it does not take up physical space. Thus it is as easy to obtain the source code as the software product. And both are in the same format.
Obviously, things are a little different in the world of design. The finished product is invariably a physical object. The closest analogy to source code would be the instructions needed to produce the product exactly. Unlike software developers, the designer does not have at his or her disposal all the tools needed to create the finished product, (Unless the machinery was open sourced but thats a long way down the line...) thus having detailed engineering drawings and instructions on setting up industrial machines would not be useful. However, this could be viable on a smaller scale. I am thinking specifically of the object that first inspired this idea...
This lamp resulted from a need when I first moved into Rupert St for some ambient lighting. Being a student, funds are not at my immediate disposal. However time and resources are, so I built it from the remains of an old lamp and other bits and bobs - a coat hanger, a plug, some extraction pipe. Its not a remarkable design, but other people liked it and asked for copies. Fine by me, but kind of odd that someone else should pay me to make for them this object that I found so easy to create for myself. (get yer head round that one!) What if someone else wanted to make it? In fact I am sure ther are many people out there who would like to, and improve it. How can I share this idea with them? The obvious answer here is simply instructions. They could be posted on the web, in a book, on TV. Like the DIY bits on Blue Peter. (Except better quality of course...). Someone with more time and motivation than me might decide to make some money out of them. Thats cool, as long as the 'source code' is included so further users can have the same opportunities as that enterprising person did.
The analogy with software is not watertight I know. In the computer world copying software is easy and mostly illegal, especially if you try and make money out of it. In the real world copying objects is not easy and mostly legal, unless you try to make money out of it. In fact we already have much more freedom than the programmers did because we can see an object and immediately understand how it works. With an object like my lamp you could discern the 'source code' (how it works) by dismantling it. Open source for one thing would mean reudundancy of the need to destroy one of my beautiful lamps. But more importantly it is about breaking down the attitudes that constrict our development today. Removing the voice that says, 'This is my idea, you can't use it' and replacing it with a voice that says 'this is my idea, lets see what can be done with it'.
Agenda for next time: The effect of open source PD on the designer's professional role; Intellectual property: what, why and why not...
