Open Source Ecology Forums

spike

why dont the GVCS have a mill?

we had a bakery oven but surly a mill is better? you can cook with fire, want to cook more have a bigger fire, you cant industrialise the grinding of flower by using a bigger bowl

and what about we look into them?

with say interchangeable jaws? for doing course and fine, as well as having one that can be used outside as a rock crusher for making rock dust?

ideas?

Ned_Ludd

What is your target scale?

If this is aimed at the third world I'd keep two things in mind: Firstly, colonialism wasn't just a land-grab, it turned largely self-sufficient communities into needy markets for bought goods. It was not one crime but two, working from opposite ends. That is the cause of the greatest part of the third world's woes. If anything meaningful is to be done to relieve the third world's plight it must be to restore that self-sufficiency at a homestead/village sort of level. That might include a bit of new technology but it is mainly about establishing a better land-access regime, recultivating lost skills, even basic stuff like restoring peace (i.e. getting rid of warlords and generalissimi squabbling over export-oriented value concentrations), etc.

Secondly, milling technology has a long vernacular tradition which works well, or would do so if the above concerns were to be addressed. Is it really necessary to re-invent the millstone? And would doing so leave the locals more or less empowered? I would think that any attempt would better be oriented at incrementally improving vernacular milling techniques (what ought we to mean by "improving"? important question), and that means understanding (and therefore respecting) local-specific technological traditions intimately.

spike

i dont mean re invent it or even to improve it

but look at all the mills for sale in the small scale, a hand cranked thing that does maybe a kg an hour and they sell for over 150A$

i think we need to develop one maybe about the same specs but cost at roughly 25$ cause there isnt much in them

Ned_Ludd

Cool. But I think we must consider how people are going to get hold of a mill: moreover, how they ought to get hold of a mill. That is to say, the price in legal-tender currency might not end up being that much of a factor, if there is a long tradition of building mills out of materials from the site.

Cash is less important in third-world rural economies, because people retain relatively much productive means in land, to the extent that this has not been disrupted by commercial exploitation, war, etc. This capacity is something that ought to be encouraged and stabilized; indeed exported to the equally troubled first world. Thus it is necessary to understand not only the economic context in which a product is to be made/acquired/used, but also the context that would be most desirable.

Then, the tricky bit, which is also the exciting bit: to design the product in such a way that its introduction into the current economic context will tend to change the context in a way that would facilitate the desired context coming about. The mental leap here is the realization that any economic context is determined by its entire content, and that the introduction of any new element will cause the context to change in some lesser or greater measure. This is straight ecological thinking. But if one is clever one can determine what sort of change to effect, and even if that change is small the important thing is that the resulting context is such that subsequent changes become easier and more effective.

Ecological thinking notwithstanding, it is the nefariously corporate who understand this best. They merrily go about changing the world to suit themselves, while the rest of us live according to the unspoken rule, "You can't change the background." Of course you can change the background. In fact you are changing the background all the time. The trick is to change it like this and not like that - but this is difficult for a whole lot of other reasons.

spike

sorry ned but i think where on 2 very different pages here...................

when i said price wise i didnt mean to say that we would be selling them i meant to say theyre imparted monetary value, the labour and materials that go into it.

The thing about the other GVSCs is that they can be substituted for cheaper recycled parts.

im thinking we work on somthing made out of concrete, which can then be substituded for stablised mud if need be, but will grant the users the shape and idea of how to make them. rather than using a mortar and pestle.

Ned_Ludd

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to shoot down your idea, rather to point out a few general principles to keep in mind. In this regard I'm afraid I'm a bit like Lord Emsworth and his inability, having once started saying "Capital!", to stop! Doubtless you're way ahead of me.

Please bear with me if (and when) I throw in such apparent non-sequiturs. They would need to go somewhere, and I fear that engineers would simply ignore a Philosophical Waffle thread.

Concrete: good idea. Stone could be used in landscapes that offer suitable stone, and would have the additional benefit of reinforcing stonemasonry skills that are useful in general construction.

Matt_Maier

Down at the bottom of the page
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/GVCS_Changes#Bakery_Oven

Aren't traditional flour mills just a big flat rock that spins on top of another big flat rock? Could you just make a mold, pour concrete into it, then spin the resulting hunk of stone either by hand or with something mechanical? It seems like a flour mill isn't something that has to be open sourced so much as it just has to be in demand. However, very few people grow their own grain, or live anywhere near anyone who grows grain. So it would actually cost them more to import and grind the grain themselves then to just buy the manufactured flour. So most people don't have any interest in a flour mill.

Don't get distracted by the technical challenge or the poetry and miss the economic reality.

Ned_Ludd

Close enough to my concerns, Matt.

I think this is another case of something that at first seems an obvious candidate for the third world turning out to be much more revelant to the first world, if nascent social and political changes go the way some hope they will. I can see innovative small-scale flour-milling techniques coming out of the Occupy phenomenon: see the reference to the Gill Tract here: http://c4ss.org/content/10402.

Matt_Maier

Why do people continue to insist that THEIR favorite project will OBVIOUSLY become the definition of a new zeitgeist? Why can't they just say it's a good idea? I wonder if it's possible to correlate whether or not someone believes they're going to make an impact on the entire human race with whether or not they actually do.

Anywho...I'm a big fan of "more options." It bothers me that the people in the world with the ability to do pretty much anything they want (on an individual level) are still picking from a limited set of options because they simply aren't aware of all the simple ways of doing things that people used before, you know, iPads and stuff. I don't expect people to start using tools, some people just aren't handy and/or don't have any interest in handiness. However, I think there WOULD be a market for small-scale production/manufacturing if people just knew it was an option. For example, plenty of people are "into" eating healthy and naturally, so they go to Whole Foods and buy barely processed wheat flour (you know, cuz, grains). That's all they know! There's no reason one dude in his garage couldn't order sacks of wheat, grind it into flour, and sell it directly to everyone in the neighborhood. There's no reason one dude couldn't run a vegetable/herb garden by taking "orders" to grow specific things from people in the neighborhood. Etc. It's just that people aren't aware of that economic structure anymore.

Centralization is easier to regulate, so that's probably a big part of why we keep moving in that direction. When someone wants to sue someone it's a lot easier if the "someone" is an anonymous corporation with lots of cash. It's less satisfying/profitable to sue someone who's working out of their garage so they don't have much money and when you do get it you just piss off your own neighbors who were buying from the same guy.

spike

sorry guys i didnt mean to sound as if this will be the next best thing since slices bread (pun intended)

and from what ive seen you will be surprised how many people currently grow their own grain for whatever reason.

but i feel that the same reason that the bakery oven has even been included in this.

It is needed rather than desired and this seems to be a difference with a lot of the GVSCs.

And your right the traditional mill is a large stone and i dont have a problem with that at all, but the art of dressing a stone is long lost (i know of one in the world)

Ned_Ludd

Stone-dressers are rare but by no means extinct. Each major city in the world is likely to have one or two, making a living through architectural restoration work.

Matt_Maier

"
The different milling techniques produce visibly different results, but can be made to produce nutritionally and functionally equivalent output. Stone-ground flour is, however, preferred by many bakers and natural food advocates because of its texture, nutty flavour, and the belief that it is nutritionally superior and has a better baking quality than steel-roller-milled flour.^[8] It is claimed that, as the stones grind relatively slowly, the wheat germ is not exposed to the sort of excessive temperatures that could cause the fat from the germ portion to oxidize and become rancid, which would destroy some of the vitamin content.^[8] Stone-milled flour has been found to be relatively high in thiamin, compared to roller-milled flour, especially when milled from hard wheat.^[8]"

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_mill}

Apparently steel-ground flour can lose some nutritional content because of excess heat, probably from grinding fast to increase the amount of flour produced per hour.

The bakery oven isn't a necessity. I assume they included it for the same reason they didn't include lots of other things: they realized that the current GVCS list is pretty arbitrary and what exactly is on it at the moment isn't important.

spike

ok so say we asked a stone mason to prepare a wheel for us? now times that cost by lots of people who want one

look at half the GVCS on the list, most are available but you have to pay for them and its the cost that OSE effectively tries to avoid. So instead of of buying a small hand mill, paying to have a stone mill carved or doing it the old way of pounding it with a stone we should provide it to the people

To me and this is very personal is is many of the GVCS to other people but i like to think eating is important hence the need for the ability to turn grain to flour, rather than flour to bread.

spike

ok so this seems like were just fighting saying yes no yes no

so can i get some answers from you both? and anyone else reading this post

1: do you eat bread in reasonable quantities

2: do you feel the need to provide flour is important

3: do you feel there are other options available?

Matt_Maier

1) Sure, I guess.

2) Yes.

3) Yes. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on the topic, but I think that anyone in the world who can't get ahold of bread at decent prices has A LOT more problems than not having their own flour mill. Growing and processing grain into some form of bread is one of the foundations of civilization; everyone has access to it. If they don't have access to it, then they aren't civilized, and they are probably worrying about way more important things like getting shot or eaten by a wildebeast or something. Basically, bread is more-or-less a commodity. Also, the tools necessary to turn grain into flour, and then into bread, are not complex, expensive, or brittle. You basically just need a couple rocks and a fire (and a lot of elbow grease).

Ned_Ludd

1. Yes: dyed-in-the-wool panivore.

2. Yes: though I should like to qualify the word "provide".

3. Yes: you'll find that the "world's needy" i.e. the third world buys flour or, more likely than not, factory-baked foam-rubber bread, at supermarkets. But there is a lot of flour that doesn't go to bread. In southern Africa it's maize flour that goes into "pap", a sort of stiff porridge eaten either sweet or savoury. "Pap" and not bread is the staple starch, but as it stands the flour that goes into it is a bought industrial product.

I think what I'm trying to say about the third world is that it is the way it is not because of lack of "modern" infrastructure, but because of external disruptions to established systems of survival. These people aren't living "outside civilization"; the perception that they are is the legacy of the spin that was necessary to sell the colonial project to home populations in the 19th century. They are living in a condition where the economic aspects of established cultures are rendered inauthoritative by the imposition of an external authority. The point is, repair the cultural (i.e. political) damage and the people will quite readily revive/develop/adapt/adopt the technical aspect for themselves. In seeking technical solutions for the third world we are for the most part trying to solve nonexistent problems.

In the West, however, there is a growing movement oriented to changing the basis of manufacturing as a key element in bringing about cultural/economic/political change, and that is to my mind the natural arena for the sort of idea you are proposing.

spike

ok i think i get where this is going........

but the fact were building a micro-combine to harvest grain but not a mill to make it into flour, maybe its a personal thing but i dont eat grains that arent pulverized into bread.

@ned i dont mean to go against Africa, its just how my mind works. If we consider all of the GVCS to be used in say america they all seem to fit (i still believe there is an area requiring the mill) but anyway for the moment we will let sleepign dogs lie

Matt_Maier

I figure an oven is reasonably complicated, especially if you're talking about more than a pile of bricks with a fire under it. Also, a machine for harvesting and processing grain is complicated. A mill isn't complicated. No matter how much performance you want, at the end of the day you're still just spinning a couple pieces of metal/stone against each other. It's like the question about why there isn't a boat in the GVCS. I believe the GVCS will be used to make boats at some point, but boat design doesn't need much attention from the open source community.

justglen

Hi, I just joined this form and wanted to add to this conversation.

Right now I am living in Japan where as you all know rice is the staple here. One of the things that really makes harvesting the rice easy are the small combines or micro-combines that they use in the rice paddies. So I am happy to see the micro-combine on the list even if there isn't a flower mill, considering over half of the world's population's staple is not grain, but the combine is still very important.

spike

but do we have to be focusing on complicated machines?

anyway im going to drop it from the ideas for OSE and maybe run with it myself

Matt_Maier

I don't think it's that we HAVE to focus on complicated machines so much as the uncomplicated ones don't require much focus.

gonzo

3: do you feel there are other options available?

Sure: raw food. Eating fruits and vegetables and avoiding cereals. Cereals contain gluten and lectins and probably other substances that are not so good for your health.
http://www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/grains.html
http://paleolithicdiet.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/antinutrients-your-key-to-bad-health/

However, I agree with you Spike, that some tools like mills should be considered.
There are a few people here who promote the idea that (almost) all the people should make everything on their own, that they should all have their own workshops with furnaces, forge, torch table, 3d printers, ceb press, etc. just to be able to produce some small parts occasionally. They think that people don't really need clothes, that the people should waste 3-6 hours daily with manual washing machines, etc.
But you are not alone and there are others who think like you. Check for example http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Talk:Global_Village_Construction_Set#Toys

Yes, tools like mills would be good to have, even if they are not complicated machines. Some parts might be harder to produce, and then it will be much easier to buy them from someone who makes those standard parts.
Even if the people make all the mill on their own, having an open design is very good, as they won't have to figure about how to do it on their own.
Also documentations and video tutorials are extremely useful.

Matt_Maier

I honestly don't understand why this is a topic of conversation. Flour mills ARE NOT complicated. Making and using them can be labor intensive, but they might as well be listed right next to "the lever" based on how simple and ubiquitous a tool they are. There is no need to develop an "open" mill design because that's already been done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2Fn7GGi4eWM#!

Literally all you have to do is SEE a picture of a mill stone. That's all it takes to "open source" the design. There's no more work to do. Even if you wanted to automate it, all you'd be adding would be a few gears or belts. Again, show someone a picture and they'll have the design memorized in seconds.

If you really feel like OSE needs to provide plans for a mill stone then just compile the information. Maybe summarize it. Here's a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millstone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metate

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/1980-11-01/Handcranked-Grain-Mills.aspx

http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/millstone.html

http://www.coolshinystuff.com/wondermill/wonder_junior_deluxe.asp

http://www.google.com/patents/US51549?printsec=drawing&dq=hand+mill+grain+stone&ei=-j_MT7jrKMaU2AWFhtjbCw#v=onepage&q=hand%20mill%20grain%20stone&f=false

http://www.google.com/patents/US353710?printsec=drawing&dq=hand+mill+grain+stone&ei=-j_MT7jrKMaU2AWFhtjbCw#v=onepage&q=hand%20mill%20grain%20stone&f=false

http://www.google.com/patents/US3606918?printsec=drawing&dq=hand+mill+grain+stone&ei=S0DMT-DZIKW22gWxt63aCw#v=onepage&q=hand%20mill%20grain%20stone&f=false

Ned_Ludd

"There are a few people here who promote the idea that (almost) all the people should make everything on their own, that they should all have their own workshops with furnaces, forge, torch table, 3d printers, ceb press, etc. just to be able to produce some small parts occasionally. "

No, I think the point is rather that all such capacities should be available in a narrower or broader community, depending on the degree of specialization. The aim, as far as I'm concerned, should be that a process of manufacture should be possible not by oneself in its entirety but through dealing only with others who are for all practical purposes similar to oneself. That is, to get rid not of specialization but of concentrations of technological (and hence economic and political) power. One might call it "revernacularization".

There is a social angle to this stuff of which some here are wholly unaware. I think a lot of the logistical side of things can and should be sunk, as it were, in spontaneous and intuitive social structures, some of which already exist in some form or another, others of which may be expected to arise in response to new opportunities.

In a nutshell: we've got a social machine already. Why not use it?

gonzo

"There is a social angle to this stuff of which some here are wholly unaware. I think a lot of the logistical side of things can and should be sunk, as it were, in spontaneous and intuitive social structures, some of which already exist in some form or another, others of which may be expected to arise in response to new opportunities."

Fuzzy words without any practical value. A bunch of empty words.
Here is something meaningful and practical, in simple words: You can easily replace the components of your computer as they have standard interfaces.
That's the way all devices should be made: with standards, or better, with open source standards.
Not because you'll make components of your own. But because you will be capable to buy components at cheap and you will be able to replace them.
If you want to be a geek, then sure - make components on your own - if you can afford to have your own workshop. But the revolution starts from the fact that you can buy components at cheap.
In time, that will encourage local businesses to start manufacturing components. But until that will happen, it's extremely important to supply components to users.
It will take time for the people to understand how it works and how to start their own production facilities.
That's why it's so important to supply parts as the first step into driving the revolution.

Ned_Ludd

"Fuzzy words without any practical value. A bunch of empty words."

I take exception to that. The lack of analysis of non-natural-science issues in this project is really, and ultimately practically, problematic.

It's no good coming up with brilliant solutions to problems that are entirely different to what a facile thirty-second analysis suggests.

"In time, that will encourage local businesses to start manufacturing components. But until that will happen, it's extremely important to supply components to users.

It will take time for the people to understand how it works and how to start their own production facilities.
That's why it's so important to supply parts as the first step into driving the revolution."

This is more valuable, thanks. You are therefore suggesting a process of phased transition. Fine, that is useful; but we must understand how earlier phases will facilitate and not prevent subsequent phases. And we need to understand what ultimate condition we are aiming for, how and to what extent it is to become a stable condition, and why we believe it to be desirable. And that analysis has to be robust, to which end I shall certainly continue to throw devil's advocacy at it.

In particular here, how do we stop the "cheap components" economic machine from being self-defensive and actively opposing open-source agendas, if we don't understand that it is self-defensive, not even to mention how or why. To speak metaphorically, these questions are half the book, and relegating them to a short paragraph in the preface is going to cause us to get it seriously wrong.

gonzo

we must understand how earlier phases will facilitate and not prevent subsequent phases

Making more money and becoming more popular will definitely facilitate subsequent phases. If Makerbot could get $10 million in investments just because it sells the 3D Printers, then you can imagine how much money the OSE can get from selling more desired machines like washing machines, dryers, dust busters, microwave ovens, etc.

And we need to understand what ultimate condition we are aiming for

The ultimate condition we are aiming for is, obviously, to make those machines popular, to make them affordable, to make sure everyone can buy them at the best price and everyone can buy parts to repair the machines at the best prices also. Until the people will learn to make small companies around the world to produce OSE machines and parts, OSE should supply machines and parts. The purpose is not to for OSE to make business, but in fact, the purpose is for OSE to teach others to do business with OSE machines. But until the people around the world will learn to do that, someone has to show them that it can be done and that it's really worth do such business. And the best organization to show that is, obviously, OSE.
Obviously, the purpose of OSE can't be to supply designs to a few rich geeks who want to play with machines so they can make open source machines and parts. There are a some people in the OSE project who believe that everyone in this world should move to villages and make their own workshops where they create the machines on their own, which is really silly.

how and to what extent it is to become a stable condition

This is indeed an important question. A stable condition is a world-wide market of people (clients) used to buy and repair their own OSE machines, and a world-wide network of suppliers (producers) of machines and parts.
Until the complete stability is achieved, OSE has to be prepared to supply parts, in order to make sure the people can buy the parts they need. Because, if the people buy an OSE machine, then they must have the certainty that they can repair them at cheap, by buying cheap parts.
In time, they will learn that they can too start small production facilities and they can supply parts and machines in their own communities.

And that analysis has to be robust, to which end I shall certainly continue to throw devil's advocacy at it.

That's an awesome idea. Of course it has to be robust, and therefore it's a good idea to analyze the plan from all its facets. And it's very important to have critical thinking and to always ask "but what if this aspect won't work?". That will also create backup plans (if plan A doesn't work, we have plan B and plan C, etc)
This is a thread where I did exactly that: http://forum.opensourceecology.org/discussion/677/is-the-plan-really-efficient

In particular here, how do we stop the "cheap components" economic machine from being self-defensive and actively opposing open-source agendas

Look at the PC. It has standard components. That created a world-wide network of producers. Open-source hardware will only encourage competition and that will drive prices down. The consumers will get the most fair price. The more popular the OSE machines will become, the more investments and donations the OSE project will get.

if we don't understand that it is self-defensive, not even to mention how or why. To speak metaphorically, these questions are half the book, and relegating them to a short paragraph in the preface is going to cause us to get it seriously wrong.

I know what you mean. But you have to come with some concrete scenarios. You can't just say that we should not send people to the Moon because "who knows what will happen?". You have to come with specific scenarios and questions like "What if the solar radiation or the weak Moon gravity will affect astronaut's health?"

And sorry for being a bit too confrontational in the first post. I didn't mean to be rude, but I just wanted to ask you to come with a less vague speech.

Matt_Maier

"...
to make sure everyone can buy them at the best price and everyone can buy parts to repair the machines at the best prices also..."

>>>What makes you think even one person out of a hundred is going to buy a tractor?

"...if the people buy an OSE machine, then they must have the certainty that they can repair them at cheap, by buying cheap parts."

>>>That doesn't require that OSE supply the parts. All it requires is that the parts are commodities that require minimal machining. Then anyone can supply them, anywhere, at any time.

"Look at the PC. It has standard components. That created a world-wide network of producers."

>>>There is a minor cost difference between a PC and a tractor.

gonzo

@Matt_Maier
What makes you think even one person out of a hundred is going to buy a tractor?

That's the question that I have to ask you. Because the market for washing machines, dryers, coffeemakers, dust busters is 1000 bigger than the market for tractors.

That doesn't require that OSE supply the parts. All it requires is that the parts are commodities that require minimal machining. Then anyone can supply them, anywhere, at any time.

I still have to repeat it to you: until the people will learn to supply those parts, OSE has to teach them that it's worth doing it.

There is a minor cost difference between a PC and a tractor.

That has nothing to do with what I said. It's much cheaper to buy parts for repairing your tractor than buying a new tractor - same with PC's.

Zambia2012

Spike, I think you have a point. I am Zambian the problem we have in our country is lack of mills. Most people grow their food alright, and Ned is right here. It is the reason a dollar-a day meals are not a worry for me. It is a distortion of some simple facts. But anyway, as Ned pointed out with buying food due to colonialism we see that grain is grown in villages, sold to the city folk at a discount and through the state. Sometimes the promise to buy rural produce does not even materialize and due to lack of storage facilities, the next rain season soaks and destroys the corn, our staple. In the event the corn is taken to the cities for milling, they are returned to the rural communities at exorbitant prices. Many people cannot afford to pay for the corn meal they grew and harvested only a months back. As much as this not in support of mill inclusion, I would be happy to hear that someone like is actually on something like this.

Cheers

Matt_Maier

You saw all those links I posted, right?
It's not like the technology is complicated or requires special infrastructure. Why can't someone with a piece of old rebar and a hammer carve a couple rocks into a grain mill?

thcrinstam

This will be my first post here... I'll do a intro one later.

I am confused about a few things in this thread.

Why are people telling others that there is no need for there to be open source anything?

I thought the whole point to open source ecology was to show people how to do things that will reduce their dependence on commercialism?

If someone would like to see an open source mill project done, why not encourage them to do it? Isn't that the idea behind the open source part? If there are some who don't feel it is worth their time, they don't have to participate in it. If they think they have an idea to help, they can participate in the conversation.

The second issue, is what is with all the talk of selling equipment to others? I thought the point of ose was to come up with designs and share them so people can use them to build things they need? Was I wrong about this? Is this actually the basis for starting a commercial enterprise selling equipment once the knowledge has been open sourced to design it?

The third issue is that I also thought this was a global idea. Just because some people have access to ready ground grains, or others have no need for them, or some would rather eat fruit off a tree, doesn't change the fact that there are people who will have this need.

Perhaps this is a misunderstanding on my part.

When I read the thread title, I came to read it because I was interested in what ideas may be presented about it. The scope of the possible conversation could have covered everything from a simple description (or picture) of a mill that could easily be adapted to a power cube to a dicsussion of what types of materials could be used for the actual 'stones', to differences between hammer mills, roller mills and stone mills and so on...

Instead, I see a bunch of people slamming the idea and putting the op down for suggesting the possible line of discussion.

As I don't know who anyone is here, I can't tell if these are 'official' stances of the OSE network, or just the random spoutings of those who have nothing better to do.

So, I ask, did I misunderstand the point of OSE or is this whole thread a really bad example of what it is about?

Ned_Ludd

I must say I don't quite understand some of the interpretations I see on here either. I thought the idea was to establish a body of technologically useful, "floating" knowledge that is not confined to a delineated organizational structure but exists in spontaneous, natural communities. That, to me, is open-source. Some here seem to be after something more like source-under-glass.

That said, I believe the point has already been made that some things have always been open-source because the predate the closure (indeed the enclosure) of source. A mill is an example.

Gonzo: I did not immediately see it, but your example of a PC's standardized components is actually only a good one as soon as one does not introduce a historical aspect. For the PC is perhaps more than any other device subject to the machinations of the Future Machine. The only PC that has widely-available standardized components is the one you're about to buy or put together. As soon as you've actually done it the components will be so unavailable that you end up replacing most of the thing should you ever need any part of it!

The Future Machine wants a more thoroughgoing analysis than a Popular Mechanics technophile-optimistic extrapolation of historically recent data would suggest. Constructs like Moore's Law don't even consider the effect of intellectual property (patent law) on what is fundamentally a political-economic phenomenon and only incidentally a technological one.

gonzo

@thcrinstam:
The second issue, is what is with all the talk of selling equipment to others?

The thing is that most of the people don't have space for their own workshop, so they prefer to buy parts, instead of making them. Not everyone wants to buy their own Photocopier just for making a few copies once in a while. Same with OSE: many people will prefer to buy cheap parts, instead of wasting their money, time and space with having their own workshop.

@Ned_Ludd
The only PC that has widely-available standardized components is the one you're about to buy or put together. As soon as you've actually done it the components will be so unavailable that you end up replacing most of the thing should you ever need any part of it!

I bought my PC 4 years ago and I can replace the video card, the hard disk, the DVD drive, the memory and other components. And they are not even open source.
So, obviously, OSE can do even much better than that.

Indeed, between 1990 and 2010, many PC technologies, interfaces and standards changed but that because they evolved extremely fast, new technologies appeared with features unimaginable 5-10 years back, which is not really the case with OSE machines.
But even then, when you bought a PC, for at least 3-5 years you could find components on the market to replace parts. That's what made the PC's so succesful.

Matt_Maier

"As I don't know who anyone is here, I can't tell if these are 'official' stances of the OSE network, or just the random spoutings of those who have nothing better to do."

>>>As far as I can tell none of the core OSE team ever even reads this forum, let alone posts in it. There might be one or two exceptions. So take everything you read here with a grain of salt.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Open Source Ecology Forums