Am I not understanding FOSH (free and open source hardware)? I have always dreamed of open source hardware but it has always seemed unshakeably and fundamentally reliant on for instance massive open pit mines mining all over the world in finite dwindling supply wrecking local ecosystems every element necessary for computer components, factories able to produce at scale fueled by an enormous amount of energy from god knows where, massive pollution and waste every step of the way, and every other ill of extraction and production which seems like it can only be handled by large scale industry almost entirely capitalist for the foreseeable future. Am I missing something? Is it a pipe dream? Even if we find a way to get to a point where we can sustainably and ethically develop any new hardware we need, won’t that require persisting in the mean time in the present capitalist paradigm physically? Is this just kind of a microcosm and reification of the problem of democratizing the economy anyway?
You are missing the point. Open source hardware is about the design and drivers for the hardware being open. This means that when you buy a component you get full specs and the source code to make it run. That way you are not ruining windows 3.1 in 2024 because the company that created your train software does not update it and you can’t legally replace it (this is true right now).
Or the trains in Poland that throw up phantom fault when started within certain geofences that happen to be located on the competition’s repair centers.
Yeah as I go read more it seems like what I’m more concerned with is OSAT (open source appropriate technology) where there is heavy consideration of sustainability. Also some of the things people are mentioning here which seems to kind of overlap - open source ecology, right to repair, etc. I think though I’m kind of wanting like a deliberate synthesis of all of this, the whole range of issues, almost like the intersection of ‘green politics’ and open source everything. I feel like that intersection doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I don’t know if it’s because the ‘science wars’ make it a little awkward or what.
I think your vision of open source hardware is a little too “Perfect”.
And as every engineer knows, perfect is the enemy of good.
We will never have perfect in a capitalist paradigm. You cannot simply opt out of capitalism. You have to tear it down.
But until that becomes possible, you can still do your best to engage in harm reduction, in whatever ways make the most sense to you. Maybe that means just trying to consume less electronics. That’s a big part of the impetus behind the right to repair movement, for example.
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
tl/dr, yes it can(i mean it does today). moreover OSHW seems like it might help limit some of the bad parts. but that may cause tension viz. some current powerful people.
I reckon the benefits of open source arise from contestability in the supply chain - basically market competition.
As a buyer I can more easily switch my purchases from one supplier to another (including in-house) and that competetive tension gives me a better deal.
That competition erodes market power - and it drives down ‘super normal profits’ (economic sense of the term) closer down to the normal level (long run cost of borrowing ).
Free capitalism is about driving up profits. Restricting competition helps that by acquiring and perserving market power . Sometimes the political/market power route is easier than innovating a new or better product or production process - i.e a genuine competetive edge).
Basically it might be cheaper to bribe one market regulator (gain market power), vs employ a team of r+d engineers (try to gain competetive edge).
Society benefits when businesses do the latter (more engineering and science, less lawyers and politicians), but the shareholders don’t necessarily care which method gives them profits (let’s not mention ‘animal’ spirits) - so capitalists do a mix of both. OSHW reduces options on the market power side. Executive board remuneration becomes an imortant incentive at this point.
Capialism ans oshw can work together if the forces of free markets effectively mitigate any excess power caused by concentrations of control over capital. banks have to want to lend to small less profitable businesses who cmply with compatible standards (oshw being basically a version of this).
But I think capitslism and free and competetive markets are not the same thing. Incumbent capitalists seem to like to (ab)use free market rhetoric to try to gain political power that they then use to preserve market power and work against competition.
And I don’t think capitalism can be “torn down”, because any moderate density of human activity will beget a temptation for someone to try to get some disporportionate share of some type of power; ‘market’ power or otherwise.
But excesses of market (and other types of ) power can be reduced or regulated - which usually seems like a good idea. Unfortunately that does bring the politicians and lawyers back into the frame.
Open source is knowledge, if you open source documentation about proprietary architectures in depth and other knowledge like proprietary medicine and chemicals and mining tech and those chip manufacturing machines and etc, then everything will be open source, open source is basically open knowledge for everyone, maintaining and building (compiling) and developing (forking) is still up to community and that freedom is blessing of open source, since if some influential guy decides to shut down some platform/manufacture/business it can be forked by ANYONE and enshittification would be impossible in the long run
Ok, so should we start making CPUs at home for example?
We already have enthusiast grade PCB mills and pick and place machines, how hard would it be to develop a cost reduced lithography and Chemical Vapor Deposition machines?
Open source hardware movement != Free open source hardware movement.
I’m not sure that many are advocating the free part mainly the open part.
