Why do open hardware

okay um hello welcome I guess I'm speaker so I was going to uh kick this off by saying Big Ups to a and Alicia all right they deserve that they deserve two uh two claps okay so um really quick introduction I'm LaMore freed I run a FR Industries which is um downtown Manhattan so I I got to take the seven here and um I've been doing Open Source Hardware and and selling it as part of this business since 2006 and um I have really good news all the people who heard me talk I'm actually not going to talk about my business um because I and Alicia said hey we want uh you know pragmatic hobbyist uh you know Solutions based driven stuff and I was like okay you know I'm not going to talk about all the details of shipping and Manufacturing and and Licensing and all that stuff I'm actually going to talk about uh you know why do Open Source Hardware and specifically why did I do Open Source Hardware and uh maybe some reasons why you may want to do Open Source Hardware if you don't um so okay so we're going to rewind back to 2002 and 2003 and we're going to stop at 2006 so it's all going to be um history so uh you know I grew up in Boston and um Boston is sort of the seed of you know the FSF and the eff used to be there too and and so there's a lot of like uh you know liny BSD people hanging out there and I went to MIT and so there was a culture of Open Source software sort of assumed that if you were going to work on something it would be an open source software project and you know installing Linux and running it was totally cool and Microsoft sucked and and so when I started moving away from doing software and doing more Electronics um there were sort of I had this uh you know core of like oh open source software is good and I've seen the good it does and so I was definitely inspired by that so it doesn't it's not like I came up with you know Open Source Hardware out of nowhere it's a derivative of Open Source software and um what I would do when I was learning electronics is that um I would release stuff like these are some earlier projects that I did some development Wards and stuff um when I was in school and um I would release you know they would have software or firmware and I would release a software and firmware under like GPL or MIT or BSD license or any you know whatever the popular license of the time was but I would put the files up and I would just say uh you know these are the the eagle CAD files or the Gerber files and I guess do what you want with them but like the idea that you could even license them I actually had no idea I didn't know about like mask works or what was copyrighted is it schematic copyrighted or is it patented or what so put it up and I said you know whatever like you know enjoy yourself so um for example I'm going to go through specific examples of projects and why I open sourced them or why I published them so this was a project I did this was actually um uh you know a little bike light wheel thing and you spin the wheel and the lights display a message or an image like a biohazard and um I actually did this project to learn microcontrollers because I was an engineer and learning electronics and this seemed like a cool thing and uh uh you know my roommate was really into making per A Vision Art LED projects um we made really big ones and I was always like hey you know like I'd like to build this stuff too you want to like show me how you do this stuff and he was always kind of like not really uh you're on your own and so I was like all right fine so I downloaded um a freeware version of Eagle Cad and and you can see um my circuit boards are only three inches long because that's the limit of eaglecad so I had to take three boards and then I'd staple them together um that's that's why it's done that way to make them long fit on my bike wheel um so you know when I when I made this and actually did many revisions and this particular version I never put up because it it's so embarrassing um and you know I didn't feel like any anyone needed to see it I just went to Burning Man and and I wrote around on it and um I ended up putting it online later when I revised it and made it better and I put it under uh a non-commercial license and uh I want to tell you that it doesn't matter whether you put something under a non-commercial license because someone will probably come along and make a derivative anyways and it'll be close source and they might be your ex-boyfriend okay so I'm just telling you like and if this is going to happen uh from then on I never did anything non-commercial I never released anything under creative comms noncommercial license because I was like wow that really backfired um so uh another project I did uh to learn microcontrollers and this was a more complicated one was making an MP3 player now all of you old schoolers who were doing Electronics in 2004 and 2003 probably remember that building MP3 players was the hot new thing everyone was building their own DIY MP3 players because they were MP3 chips and I'd see all these people doing projects I was like wow I really want to make my own and because there were so many um examples online and people actually started to put up files and say well I don't know what license this would be under but I guess it's free for you to use it any way you want so I actually uh got a Kickstart and you know designed My Own MP3 player and it and it went into a mint tin uh and this is you know my uh first breakout board PCB and I could only afford two chips so I had to desolder this one to make the final version which is while the chips were pulled off um and um because I did this project based on all these people's uh generous donations of of code examples even if it was in another language or I use different chips because I use all of these examples and that was how I really learned a lot about microcontrollers and electronics they said well you know like I should give back right so that's why I put those files up online and uh for free to use and a lot of people ended up making these and you know of course uh you know people contacted me and were like have you know this was in the slash dot this was in the New York Times and it was on a bunch of other sites and everyone's like oh man I'm totally going to like make and sell these because you put the files online you said it's totally cool and and I got a lot of people who you know even showed me like here are prototypes and I'm going to make manufacture these and it's like okay well you I'm still in school and like that's good I guess I was kind of a little upset I like well you're making money off of something that I kind of gave away for free and I didn't really even consider this possibility but uh it turns out that it didn't work out anyways because um you know Apple had the iPods so you know it it doesn't matter right so I'm saying that people you know I have so many projects where I release them and I'll get like 20 people emailing be like Oh I'm going to manufacture these and sell them on Canal Street and it it turns out that it's a little more complicated uh than just that and then uh you know okay so I know a little bit about Electronics but it's time to graduate uh and so I was like well you know maybe I can uh con my advisor into letting me build a cell phone jammer for my thesis and uh that worked out great and so I built the cell phone jammer and and the thing about cell phone Jammers and um you know I don't know if you people who aren't from America it's actually totally illegal to use them in some countries it is but it's illegal to manufacturer sell use cell phone jammer so I was like okay well I don't have to worry about anyone like ripping this off and you know making a fortune off of it because you can't um and uh so it turned out that you nobody ever I mean was too complicated and expensive to make anyways uh you know people wanted to manufacture cell phone Jammers they would do it in a simpler way uh but turned out that instead just got hate mail saying how I'm a terrorist because I'm showing uh you know Al Qaeda how to build cell phone Jammers and you know this is why we're all going to die uh so um you know there's always trade-offs and then um my final or my second to final example is um a very basic project that I made as a giveaway to uh incoming students we want to do something very simp simple that we could make you know 100 kits and you know freshman would come in we' teach them how to solder and and it was a rush for you know a dormatory and so it just you know spells lar in the air there's actually a kit um in the uh goodie bag from Evil mad scientist that's I think kind of does this and um so I didn't actually open source it at first and then eventually I put it up online and you know had it as a kit and um the thing is actually it it was such a stupid design that uh it was never used by anybody I mean people would look at it and like well it's just like eight LEDs in a microcontroller like you got to be kidding me like why' you even bother so it turns out that uh you know putting up stuff online if it's so basic you don't have to worry about somebody like ripping it off because it was actually cheaper for them to use whatever they had in their in their box of Parts than to you know to use what I do this and this you know this people ask me a lot about like well you know you put your files up what if people manufacture and sell this and so this is actually uh the final example of a project I did before Ada fruit which is an open source synthesizer and the story behind this is um my friend really wanted a TB 303 Rolland clone CU he really wanted to make techno and these clones are like over thousand doar on eBay they haven't been made since 1984 and it was like you really wanted one and we couldn't afford it and we're like well wait a minute we're like analog engineers and this is you know a single oscillator synth I mean how hard can it be so you know we went online and there were all these people who made them and we're like okay well can we just like get your schematics and like we'll build our own we only want to make one and they're like no we're not going to give and we're like no we don't want to sell them we just want to make one they're like uh we don't want to share anything with you and I'm like well you're like what do you care and they're like well we're German and I'm like okay okay whatever so you know what are you gonna argue so uh so in the end we were so upset it turns out that my friend's German too so I don't know maybe what for whatever reason we were so upset we said [ __ ] this we're going to make our own clone of this you know old synthesizer and we're going do such a good job that it'll put you to shame and then nobody else will ever have to go through this frustration of you know wanting to build something that other people have built and have done a pretty good job and done all the research but aren't willing to share their information so you know we bought the broken synth off eBay for like 200 bucks and we took it apart and we traced out all the parts and schematics and we measured the transistors and we figured out what was going you know looked up data sheets and I wrote a a sequencer from scratch and then you know sort of halfway through like well you know if we're going to like do all this work we might as well maybe make kits for other people cuz you know if we're going to make circuit boards we might as well get a 100 made and so um the thing is that we were actually a little worried because we did know that there was such a demand for these synthesizers that we like well if we give away everything somebody may end up you know taking these files and and you know putting us out of business and you know we'll lose all our money before we even get off the ground so we actually came up with a sort of compromise we said all right well let's break even we'll make you know we put $20,000 in to buy all the parts and everything that's how much cost and we're like we don't want to lose that money so let's make that money back and then once we make that money back then we'll release all the files open source hard Hardware so uh we actually did that and what's interesting is that you know after two runs we put the files up and we're like okay like we're waiting for this Onslaught and it never happened in fact the only time that people ended up making their own versions when we didn't is when we didn't have the kits in stock we actually couldn't keep them in stock because they were in such a high demand that the demand ended up pushing people to say well I I'm on this waiting list for a year I'm just going to like make my own if that's okay so uh you know think about that is a a difference between um you know putting stuff online and and your worst fears occurring and what actually does occur and you know now uh I'm actually not interested in this project anymore it's it's old enough that I've moved on to other stuff um but um I'm lucky because there's other people making them and so there's like about a half a dozen or dozen individuals and companies that are manufacturing this kit and uh it's good because we designed and documented it well enough that um there'll be plenty of asset techno uh for all of us uh well into the future uh which I think is great other people may dislike but I hate house music so that's how it is um but what's interesting and this is a a weird thing that occurred is because it became such a ubiquitous design like every tb303 clone out there pretty much is a derivative of the ZBOX and there's like quite a few of them now is that we now see people manufacturing this uh you know for sale and in stores and we say Hey you know our license kind of asks that you just put some attribution on just say you know this was based on the zox box designed by adaf fruit or Lady Ada or whatever and they say well um you have to prove to me that you designed it cuz I don't believe you that's how ubiquitous it got um or maybe they're just [ __ ] I don't know anyways so uh after this is when I started the business so that that's the end that's that this is all the stuff that happened before and so you know after the business now now when I make stuff actually release the files immediately I don't worry about this breaking even thing because I've determined that uh it actually doesn't matter so now I'm actually going to uh talk about the reasons why more generally instead of just examples okay so uh it doesn't seem like it makes any sense whatsoever to do Open Source Hardware right I mean like come on let's think about it like logically because if you do something that's good it'll probably be stolen from you and if you do something bad you'll be made fun of right so there actually like there's only mediocre middle way but you'll just be ignored um and I think that uh you know one of the reasons I like to do Open Source Hardware I think a lot of people do is because they're you know they want to show off what they've done and I think that unfortunately there is a there is this Cloud that goes with a silver lining when you release staff especially online um I think people online they want to seem smarter by critiquing what you've done and so you know I released projects I've worked on for months or a year or more and there's always going to be like a couple dozen people who email me and say like you're really stupid for picking that opamp and I'm like maybe I spec that opamp for a reason jerk but it still frustrates me right it still frustrates me and it hurts my feelings because I'm human and of course it hurts when somebody says like oh your design totally stuck sucks and this is stupid and this is baby programming for pot smokers of course it hurts our feelings right so what I'm saying is that what we can do perhaps as a community is actually I don't understand this meme but Phil put the slide in um what we can do as communities maybe figure out a way to get all these people who who you know in actuality are just jealous because they don't have the ability to do what you know they're looking at you know right it's like the it's like you know so you spent so much time on that what a waste it just means that like you know I wish I could have spent that much time instead I'm going to be watching like the wire or whatever 24 hours and I think that if we can bring these people in and make them part of the community so that they have something to share and I think open source software does this a little bit better but we're we're still starting out get these people who are haters and bring them in and make them part of the community and I think that will um I think that will solve one of the problems but you know just be aware that if if you're relying on external validation only that um you'll get crushed a little bit okay and so here's another thing and this is a question that um I get asked a lot and usually it's comes right after the question or comment well I'd really like to do Open Source Hardware but what if something really bad happens right what if someone manufactures my design and starts making money off of it and he doesn't share any with me or you know what if I'm cloned in China or you know what if I'm ignored or whatever and it it turns out that um I always kind of Imagine like the Arduino team at breakfast every morning kind of like sits there and it's like what what the [ __ ] were we thinking right there's what a stupid idea especially like every day where they're like it's like it's 9:00 a.m. they're reading the paper and there's like another Arduino in the news right so um but I think it's important and and why I'm not talking about business so much in this talk is there is a big difference between doing Open Source Hardware and running a business and trust me you can be very good at Open Source Hardware and very bad at running a business right and vice versa and both and you can be bad at both but the thing is that uh if you do it with Open Source Hardware whether or not you succeed at running your business which is again a completely different skill set right which is related uh your project will at least live on and I think that uh you know go back to the slide being obscure is worse than a being ubiquitous and also uh you know and I see and I do see a lot of like clones of my stuff all over the place and and you know people making derivatives and not attributing me as you know one thing and or like denying that I even made it in the first place and asking me to prove that I made it and I think that uh you know yeah it gets me frustrated and I have fear and frustration anger and sadness but uh you have to reframe it a little bit and you know okay sure it is a little annoying to me sometimes that there's people Mass manufacturing my synthesizer and not giving me attribution perhaps but on the other hand it's kind of great that there's so many of these synthesizers out there and that of all the designs that they wanted to manufacture they chose mine because it was the best right you think about it that way yay s so or anything else right I mean if if you're getting it's like right the piracy is a tax on success right I mean like there's no copyright zoomes on Canal Street right you know so think about it that way right this is a you know always whether or not you open source of course it's not going to matter but you can't think of it that way uh if somebody is making your stuff it's because you did a really good job okay another reason you might be interested in Open Source Hardware is because you're an ideological freak and you're just like well freedom is in speech right it's great and I do agree with this and I think it you know it's definitely a good motivator and uh you know it helps people a lot um there there's definitely um I've learned a lot more by looking at other people's Open Source Hardware Designs and you know seeing what they did and you know I respect them so I'm like well if they chose this part they probably did it for a reason so I should either ask them or research more and you know I learned programming a lot by looking at open source software and you know because the code was available I could look at it modify it and uh and so that that's definitely one of the main reasons that I think you should do Open Source Hardware as well uh you can use Open Source Hardware as a marketing term uh you know if you're running a business and you want to say like oh you know our stuff's Open Source Hardware or open source software uh you know that that is um one thing you can do and I think a lot of people here who do run businesses are taking advantage of that but I would like to warn you if you're saying that something's open source Hardware but then you're spending all night thinking of ways you can get around Open Source Hardware restrictions like oh well I'll put up the files but I'll obfuscate them or you know I'm going to put up the files but later or like you know you do all these little tricks and loopholes I'm watching you so it's everyone else okay and then you know of course the the the final big reason for doing Open Source Hardware is uh you know to be part of an awesome community of people who are many of whom are here and uh it's fantastic I love to work on electronics I work with uh with people on electronics all the time over email and I've met awesome great people uh by being in Open Source Hardware and I think that's fantastic and I think again people learn more and uh by sharing they get to uh sort of advanc as Engineers um so you know there's all these reasons and a lot of them um are kind of like related to the individual like how can my company benefit from Open Source Hardware you know how can I benefit as engineer as Open Source Hardware how can I like save time on this project by using somebody else's design but I also want to remind you that when we give to charity we don't give just to get our name on a building right we give to become better people because giving is a way to quiet that sort of whiny annoying toddler inside of us that's selfish and grabby so giving away is a way of sort of releasing that and and sort of growing up and and not just being um you know so grabby and selfish but giving to other people and giving without asking to have necessarily our name on a building just because we know it's important to give and one of the nice things I like is that uh it is in a sense viral and I don't mean in you know the GPL sense of the word viral but rather uh you know I give and then you know maybe I Inspire other people to give because they're like well you know if like she can do it and like she's a girl I mean like how hard can it be right so maybe I'll do Open Source Hardware too and and I think I've tried to convince some people to do Open Source Hardware I mean it's not for everybody I will agree but I've tried to convince some people to join in because I think it's important so you who have donated to Open Source Hardware by giving away your designs are awesome I just wanted to like put that slide in okay so I want to sort of finish up with uh this quote from Nina paly and I really like Nina paly and she's an artist uh not necessarily engineer but uh she sort of talks about artwork and you can think of your engineering projects this way way as children that need to grow up and sort of move on and and again not try to to be grabby and and selfish and keep it to yourself but let it go and yeah it's going to make mistakes and there's going to be things that happen that don't make you comfortable just like you know if you have little sisters or children or or little brothers you'll see the same thing and they'll make the same mistakes you did but that's just part of the process and that's part of them growing up as you know both you and your project so to wrap up too long didn't listen okay we'll pay attention now so why do I create Open Source Hardware okay so one is to join a community this you know examples for all of these so when I was an undergrad MIT um you know and I was like a sophomore freshman there was this totally awesome guy on Big Man on Campus name was bunny Wang he was so cool okay everybody wanted to know bunny cuz he was like this Rockstar engineer and he cracked this Xbox who's awesome and I was like Wow but like I was an undergrad so like I wasn't cool enough to talk to him but now I talk to him every day cuz we work together on Open Source [Music] Hardware okay so another reason so remember I talked about my roommate who did the Pres Vision Art and I said like hey can you like give me some ideas of how to do this sort of stuff so I want to build it and he's like yeah not so much wasn't really interested in Sharing well he died unexpectedly a few years later and um everything that he made and he made fantastic beautiful art is kind of unmaintainable I mean there's like two or three people who know how to maintain it but for the most part it's it's kind of stuck in a crate and sometimes it gets pulled out and like somebody can go in and try to make it work but because he never released I don't even think that he even thought this was a possibility he didn't release the schematics he didn't release the design files he didn't release the firmo the source code it's it's just this mass and it's and it's a little sad to me because it's such great art and it doesn't live on Beyond him you know so I I wish he would have open source stuff I don't know maybe if Open Source Hardware had been around and and more popular he would have considered it um and finally um I do open source Open Source Hardware uh you know because I think it makes me a better engineer uh engineering is really important to me because it's sort of my my art form and when you're designing something just for yourself you're going to take a lot of shortcuts and you're not going to do a very good job you're not going to document stuff and you're not going to take the care that you will when you know that 10,000 people are going to be looking at it and critiquing it and asking you questions and trying to build it and so I think that when I uh do projects now I I try to do a better job of Designing and documenting and and I feel like I've become a better engineer slowly but surely um without having to get like a real engineer job which is kind of a bonus um so I want to finish and say you always give back always get back more than what you give so uh please please give thank you and then I don't think you we have time for question [Applause]