The following eight stages are grouped into five broad phases of hidden problem, increasing tensions, take-off, waging the movement, and success.

Stage 1: Normal Times

Stage 2: Efforts to Change the Problem Demonstrate the Failure of Official Remedies

Stage 3: Ripening Conditions

Stage 4: Take-Off

Stage 5: Movement Identity Crisis — A Sense of Failure and Powerlessness

Stage 6: Winning

No, Marcin is now bandying around 5 mil as the figure to complete the gvcs.  See the blog comments.  And I'm not faulting him for that specifically, >$100k per tool may indeed be what he needs to do it his way, because every time somebody shows up to provide free help he drives them off or drops the ball some other way.
 
The lack of man-power explanation can work for anything except something that multiplies the man-hours going into the project.  For every one person that is both interested in OSE and can go to rural mississouri for a month, there are necessarily several people who are interested but cannot go.  That resource is being wasted entirely right now.  Heck that might be something like 90% of all people willing to put effort into OSE.  Poor management.

Which I wouldn't mind so much if it were not for the lying about it.  "If it isn't on the wiki it does not exist" is what he says the policy is, right in the blog post referenced by the OP.  Not only is that completely not true, it is not even close, and he clearly does not intend to make it true, either (that blog post was a while ago).  On the wiki you can also find a "scaling strategy" page where he tips his hand and makes it clear that people helping over the internet simply is not a part of his approach. And yet he runs around telling people that their help is wanted, and they should dive into the wiki and get started.  When I said approximately as much in a comment on the blog, he promptly censored it.

My objection is not a matter of principle, either, he is seriously wasting people's time with his chronic dishonesty, which is extremely inconsiderate.     How long did Howard spend documenting stuff that was obsolete? How long did Bastelmike spend getting up to speed and contributing based on information on the wiki, or only to find that he was being lied to on both counts about how the operation works? How many of your evenings, Allen, went down the drain because of Marcin's lies? And there have been many other people before.  He's abusing people's trust.

(not to pile on, I actually wrote this before Mike left his comment, and I personally expect they will eventually document the stuff for the existing tools well enough. But that does not solve their main problems.)

I don't consider any time I've put into this to be a waste, because I went into it from the beginning, realizing that my goals weren't the same as OSE, nor would they likely ever be so.  I've done research to further my own goals, and where OSE has been useful, or even thought-provoking, I've been thankful, and made use of it as a resource.  Where it didn't apply, I happily discarded those parts.

I've put much more time into my own grand schemes, because I'm planning for my retirement, NOT for a new world order of society, mostly because I don't believe that being ill-prepared will feel very good 30 years from now, when the USA economy has long flushed down the sewers any value my social security or other retirement investments might have had.  If I can plan for getting my retirement home to be a resilient home that meets my needs intrinsically, money won't have nearly as much value and/or the lack of such won't hurt (nearly as much).

I'm much more a follower of the ideas put forth by Mike Reynolds of Earthship fame, in that I believe that my home should be or become a facility that doesn't cost me a constant stream of cash to live in, doesn't require or involve public utility companies for water, power, or sewage, & can provide enough food to sustain me & my family/guests comfortably.  To that end, there are some things that I don't exactly agree with in his designs, and am willing to spend more to get a little better,

By that same premise, there are concepts in many different groups that seem to be working toward very similar goals that would benefit from working together or at least borrowing from each other, and while there are some ideas in OSE I've not run across elsewhere, there is also some major duplication of effort for things in their "Grand Scheme" that have already been done by others - in some cases, quite well, and far past what OSE might consider a 'full product release' stage that they not only aren't using, but don't seem to adopt, even when someone points them in the direction of an open source project that has already 'been there, done that/moved on'.

Even if OSE doesn't or won't adopt other folks wheels they've invented, I'm not under similar restrictions, and can learn from anyone ;)  I'm ok, and better off because of OSE, no matter how badly managed they are, were, or become, even though I'd like to see them get better with time.

>  We also don't know how to collaborate with remote people effectively.
 We haven't learned how, we haven't even had the time to try and figure
it out.

I should note that there have been offers from people who are quite experienced in coordinating these kinds of activities to help guide OSE in setting up, organizing, and managing remote, distributed projects.  To my knowledge, most of those offers were rejected.  The problems go deeper than a simple last of knowledge, David.

- Mark

First, when professionals are given the budget we have to design and fabricate equipment, they give up.  They consider it too hard, too tedious, and 'wrong' given their experience.  they can't do it without this tool or that software.  Make do.  you can find a way if you try.  But they generally won't.

At the very least can't someone volunteer or even hire a virtual assistant for Marcin? I can get a Filipino engneer for a couple hundred a month. I can't kick in the whole thing right now as I'm building my own shop to replicate the open source machines from here, and several other sources, but I can come up with some cash....

DavidIAm wrote:
Why is this modularity a bad goal for an open source system of power equipment?Why is this modularity a bad goal for an open source system of power equipment?

That are two long posts from, I'll try to answer some points in different posts.
Modularity isn't bad, in fact its a good idea, but with disadvantages and limitations. Cost for manufacturing these designs might be a bit higher, with prospects for future savings. Efficiency is often lower.
But the real problem is, modularity isn't really scalable. A larger more powerful power cube isn't easily compatible with the current one; its dimensions will differ, hoses and couplers will have different (larger) sizes.
And it won't be an easy quick attach! You cannot carry a 200hp power cube. You will need a crane to lift, transport and reinstall it. David, do You think a farmer is willing and able to move his 200hp-power-cube several times a week, from combine to tractor to truck?

So what is the benefit from modularity for him?

Mike

If they've already scheduled a concrete pour, and also have placed & bent the rebar, set forms, etc., any further discussion about this particular shop layout is probably a moot point now, as it is literally about to be set into concrete.

Perhaps lessons learned from this shop, both good & bad, may be used for the next iteration.

It isn't too fair to blame BastelMike for not commenting earlier, because he hasn't been around all that long, anyway, and the material for OSE is so spread out between the forum, the wiki, the blog, etc., that one couldn't have had a chance to go through all of it yet in only 6-7 weeks, especially if they had a life, a job, a family, etc.  (BTW BastelMike is showing as having been here only since Aug 4th)

I do remember seeing the proposed plans for the shop layout, but since I never really got the idea that my opinion would amount to a hill of beans and it wasn't my shop, I declined to say anything about it, on the assumption that whomever was going to build that had their reasons, and I just let it go.   It is also outside of my area of expertise, so I had to assume that they had input from *someone* (else), and that was that.

Part of the problem is that if the outside volunteers are all too often ignored, & feel like their input is wasted, they won't often bother to offer their inputs.

I stand corrected.  When, from the outside, it "seems" as if volunteers are being ignored (regardless of whether or not it is intended or not), volunteers will all too often, feel like their input is wasted, and not bother to continue to offer input.  :)

And this isn't to affix blame, only to clarify the circumstances, because, regardless of why, it still has the same effect.

Howard, check your PMs too. :)

You're going to have to annotate a bit.  Bastelmike.  I see that you created different layouts for with and without columns.  They look roughly equivalent - workflow happens in a different way in the different places - from a japanese efficiency point of view, its less optimal, but its not so optimal that production comes to a halt or people spend their days running back and forth.  Production will be done in either shop.  It may have a wider profit margin in the no-pole shop.  thats not much of a considering given our non-profit status.

Larger machine tools... the lathe we have here fits between columns.  The metalworkers I've seen for sale fit between the columns.  the operational envelope of the Fanuc robots we have a chance to acquire fit between the columns (barely).

That is fair enough, Gregor. 

DavidIAm: I plan on moving heavy parts on casters, on my smooth concrete floor that I have advocated for. We really did think about making a crane, but we don't have steel pillars, masonry pillars are *not* a safe thing to put a bridge crane's rails on. Further, to have people moving things around with a crane is actually quite dangerous - keeping objects close to the floor seems a much saner, safer, method of moving them around. So how to move heavy things? Jacks and casters. And this is from some consultation with designers of factories.
Uhh, no crane!!!! Think again please, David!

For the GVCS set You have to manufacture real heavy parts. Bulldozer, steel roller, forge press.....
I have a selfbuilt crane in my homeshop. Usually my parts are not so heavy, but just lifting the lathe's large faceplate, the vertical milling head attachment or the round table needs one! If You can't build an overhead crane, use a forklift or a movable portal crane. Yes, those columns are a drawback then, but thats prob Your own design, David.
I don't believe You will ever get a steel rollers roll between the centers of such a heavy lathe without crane !

Mike

The fact remains bastelmike that *we cannot safely mount a crane on our ceb columns*.  Its simply not safe.  

That makes it sound like you'd throw your hands up and say without the funding there isn't any point in even trying.  (with that attitude, we wouldn't have gotten where we are)  

One of my design modifications on the shop was to raise the roof significantly - its 9 feet (108 inches) high in all but the last 10 feet on the east side.  That puts the lift height at about 78 inches with a perfectly sized wheeled gantry, which is tall enough to be useful.

DavidIAm wrote
That makes it sound like you'd throw your hands up and say without the funding there isn't any point in even trying. (with that attitude, we wouldn't have gotten where we are) Its open source - I doubt these designs will survive unaltered by *us* much less other people who are going to produce them in the future. At least they have somewhere to start, there is *a* design, even if its not the best in the world. A tractor that you can both create AND gets some work done is better than pushing it all manually yourself, even if its not the best design out there. Cost and producability are *very large* components of a GCVS design - not perfection for a particular purpose.
The lifetrac is kind of like humans that way - we're not particularly good at anything in particular - but we can adapt ourselves adequately to just about everything.

If You don't have the basic equipment to build machines you will fail. Leonardo da Vinci designed excellent machines for his time being, but none of them was built because the technology, the tools to produce them didn't exist.
If OSE/FeF cant acquire good and sufficiently large (used) machine tools like lathes, mills, grinders, gear machines it won't be a success story.
Yes, I see and acknowledge that You already have done some projects. But,if You are honest, it were the easy ones? Those who required neither complicated designs nor high precision. All those components were bought off the shelf (engines, motors, pumps, couplers).
And the one that needed a complicated design, the tractor, is a complete failure! Nearly everything a farm tractor should have and be able to do is missing from lifetrac3. The Lifetrac2 broke in two when playing with a backhoe, without really doing excavation work.
Because FeF wasn't able to make a working articulated link, they "forgot" to build any steering in Lifetrac3 :-))

Look at the videos Lifetrac3 making a 90° turn on the the road - with some reversing... It's no design to improve but to forget about at once

Mike

@DavidIAm
Yes, You can push this lathe in Your shop. Turning it around 90° will be difficult or impossible. About the crane, we both did agree days ago that maximum height of the hook will be around 78", so lifting parts for that lathe might become difficult. But lets say it will work somehow.
Talking about the tractor, You may call me nonconstructive, though I don't think I deserve it. I am not the only person complaining about the current design, I have quoted other posts in this forum already before.
The task was to build an agricultural tractor.
Skid steering isn't common for these tractors, I know of no brand selling them. They are built for construction purposes where damage to the surface and soil doesn't matter. And please look on those skidsteer designs: they all have a very short wheelbase, the tires nearly touching each other which is a condition for that steering to work.
As agricultural tractor it's already unusable just because You won't get a permission to operate Lifetracs on roads, but most farmers need to do this. Most farmers don't have all fields adjacent to their farmsteads; in countries where farmers usually live in villages they never have.
Therefore I consider the tractor to be a case for a complete redesign from the beginning.
You can blame me for that, David, but I am backed by the OSE specifications like #8-High Performance, #9-Industrial Efficiency, #13Lifetime Design. In contrary, I havent found any specification there, that GVCS tools can be build without tools, skills and bought quality materials and components!
Maybe there needs a very basic discussion to be done about OSE yet, because it has not been clearly decided before: Is the GVCS set done with focus on
A) industrialized countries with focus on performance, accepting need for some capital to buy materials and components and the need to have adequate production facilities and skills
or is it
B) done for third and fourth world countries, sacrificing performance and efficiency, but enabling people there to build the GVCS set without capital for materials, taking them instead from the scrap and also having nothing than some stone age tools to build the machines.
My impression, You cant serve both goals with one set, is getting stronger and stronger with every discussion I read here and maybe take part of it. So, David, is FeF working for option A or B ???
Mike

Spinning the lathe in place isn't even a consideration.  Moving it around a corner, there is room for that, not even difficult.  Put the ends on piano dollies (well, really strong ones) and you can move it anywhere in the shop you like.    If I was going to build a lathe myself, I am particularly interested in the concrete designs - in which case, I don't think I'd be moving it, at all, ever.

No offence Allen15.

Hope is everlasting.

people in Russia say hope dies last

@dorkmo
Yes, with parallel development it could be possible. Using alll the expertise from volunteers on the web. And with an well equipped and staffed production shop for realization

But from current FeF strategy I don't expect much  until 2013.

Mike

@Bastelmike  > But from current FeF strategy I don't expect much  until 2013.

Actually, there is very little historical evidence that suggestions that serious progress can be made on the GVCS in the next few years, if ever.  If you look back into the wiki, you'll discover past attempts at GVCS-50 development efforts that reached a certain point (usually an initial design) and then were dropped.  This happens over and over again.  Note, for example, that there as been almost no word on the dimensional saw mill of late.  The project hit a set back and likely has been abandoned.  This is a recurring pattern at this point.

Dawg's suggestion is a good one - either sit back and enjoy the show, or figure out a way to do it independently.

- Mark

@Dawg
You are prob right, if You think it's not possible to convince those "happy folks". But maybe its worth some trying if it doesn't cost you more than a bit of your time

I like the basic idea of open source hardware like the GVCS. I would regret that idea demolished by mismanagement.
But, as mjn wrote, realize it independently is impossible. First you need a machine factory to do that. Something FeF ignored and came to no results that way. Second, to realize the GVCS 50 needs 30,000 or 50,000 man hours - more than the rest of my work life. So a one-man-show is no alternative either.
OSE had already build up the needed infrastructure to do it. It was known on the web. It had already acquired some funding, not enough, but more than a start already had been achived. And with FeF they had got a place to realize it.
It's really bad that OSE top management has not been able to get a medium-level management to realize it. Perhaps it was always was to tempting for Marcin to overrule his mid-level managers until noone competent left.

Remains just personally for me the question, where are other bether managed open source hardware projects ??? Suggestions by PM welcome....

Mike

>  Suggestions by PM welcome....

It sorta depends on what you are after and what your beliefs are.  @Dawg is putting together a nice collection of web tools over at Open Source Resilient Living.  It's slanted more towards self sufficiency, which isn't going to appeal to those interested in building post-money communities.  Still, some of the projects emerging are interesting - including a manual CEB tool.  Electronics are not really the focus of the GVCS, but if you want to work on an open source toaster (etc), there are plenty of OS electronic sites that would welcome you.  You might even get published in Make Magazine.  There are metal working sites, farming sites, wood working sites, and many other open source projects.  Some might meet your needs.

The approach that I have taken is to create my own site and pursue the projects of direct interest to me.  This is almost trivially easy to do with something like Google sites.  I have my Phase 3 Project site, where I have documented some of my past farm projects.  I also have sections that deal with research topics - like steam engine valves.  I have to say, that it's inspirational (at least for me) to have complete freedom over my own projects.  I use documentation conventions that I feel comfortable with.  It's also on my schedule - not someone else's.

Finally, I would comment on other sites to build a set of tools that would enable the creation of a village-sized economy using permaculture principles for food production, local resources for building, and it's own fablab for producing what ever else is needed.  There are none.  Based on my research, OSE is unique.  Marcin's vision is a very powerful one, full of hope and possibility.  This forum, the OSE wiki, the blogs, etc. were all created to pursue this vision - one that I find very attractive, personally.  This puts us in something of a bind, because Marcin really lacks management skills.  It is a double bind because he controls (and will continue to control) the financial resources coming in.  To some extent, that is completely fair.  He personally raised the money, so he should get to say how it is used.

The flip side of that argument is that Marcin is also trying to build a community.  Some of those contributions come from True Fans - like me.  In a good community, leaders listen to the voices of the group and lead them based on that input.  If the community has no input into the overall direction or the leader in control routinely ignores it, then OSE is little better than a cult based on Marcin's vision.  Marcin has gathered control solely onto himself, which means that it's ultimate success or failure rests in his hands.  It is possible that he will succeed.  It's even likely that we will see some of the GVCS slowly emerge out of the inefficient process that he uses, but it will be a long time before we see all of it come to be without some significant change in the way things are being done.

So the choice is yours, @Allen15.  If you want to further the concepts we share in, find a way to do it.  If OSE puts barriers in your way - find or make another site.  I would urge you to hold to open source values, as we will all benefit from it.

- Mark