Free Manufacturing

From Free Knowledge Institute

Currently most of the knowledge, which is required to start manufacturing of various products is not possible to gain from open information sources. It results in many far reaching consequences, which are still supposed to be a normal practice. It is of no surprise, because manufacturing has existed for more than a hundred years, but easy sharing of information is comparatively new and still in development. Some of such normal practices, which turn out to become problems with the advent of information sharing:

• educational information needs to be bought,
• manufacturing information needs to be bought,
• people work separately to solve the same problem,
• generally, information is not shared.

The success of Free Software and copyleft licenses (like GNU GPL) is a good example of information sharing benefits. Free Manufacturing is a kind of manufacturing, which is inspired by Free Software. Adoption of FS principles is not straight forward, so it is now a concept under development.

Contents 1 Motivation 2 Goals 3 Definition 4 Book "Free Manufacturing and Support"

[edit] Motivation

It is believed, that in time Free Manufacturing could seriously contribute in materialization of these goals:

• reduction of poverty,
• building cooperative relationships globally (not competitive),
• producing superior products,
• improving, enhancing and enriching education and knowledge about manufacturing,
• contributing to a sustainable environment recognising the scarcity of material resources

These improvements would facilitate other, similar efforts and result in various positive consequences.

[edit] Goals

• Reduce or eliminate artificial barriers to manufacturing and the progress of mankind imposed by monopolies and proprietary information and knowledge
• Contribute to the building of awareness about the need for Free Manufacturing
• Stimulate access to manufacturing knowledge and information
• Identify obstacles for practical use of openly available manufacturing information
• Contribute to the improving of manufacturing methodology.

[edit] Definition

An approximate definition of FM should refer to the freedom of restrictions imposed by intellectual monopolies (copyrights, patents, etc) and include the spirit of sharing knowledge in an open community.

The short definition of Free Manufacturing is proposed as follows. Free Manufacturing is that kind of manufacturing that fulfills these conditions:

1. all design information, manufacturing instructions and layout data is published online under a free license
2. standard functions, including all interfaces, are designed as open standards
3. any patents applying to parts or methods are irrevocably licensed on a royalty-free basis and any possible restriction is waived, including for further development, production and distribution
4. authorship of any part should be attributed together with the online publication of forementioned items

A more extensive definition follows here. Free Manufacturing is a kind of manufacturing, which fulfills these conditions:

1. participants manage manufacturing instructions by adhering to all of these principles:

• instructions are made publicly accessible for reading and copying,
• write access to instructions is provided through derivative project or sufficient acceptance of the initial project members,
• if the available means permit, no time is spent to put legal or effective restrictions on anyone's rights or abilities to use instructions for FM;

2. any user of manufacturing instructions, who has done considerable changes to them or to the corresponding production, thus

• creating or implying modified manufacturing instructions,
• producing significant amount of products that way,

is obligated to make modified manufacturing instructions available for FM;

3. manufacturing instructions are the closest possible to full manufacturing instructions, as the available means allow;

4. when only parts of full manufacturing instructions are selected for publication, it is done with an intent to provide the most important instructions;

5. participants manage manufacturing research information by adhering to all of these principles:

• information is made freely accessible for reading and copying,
• write access to information is provided through derivative project or sufficient acceptance of initial project members,
• if the available means permit, no time is spent to put legal or effective restrictions on anyone's rights or abilities to use information for FM,
• information is the maximum amount of available, as it is possible with the available means,
• when only parts of available information are selected, it is done with an intent to provide that information, which is most likely to result in improvement of manufacturing instructions.

[edit] Book "Free Manufacturing and Support"

Introductory parts of FM are put in here, but a dedicated project is started up for collaboration on book, which is intended to collect the essential knowledge about FM. Book is still a draft and developer communication environment must be set up. You can see the project here!