- Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:19 am
#9115
Keith, to be honest I don't quite know what to reply - maybe read my post again? I never said that the world can't be changed, but the way I understand it this thread is about making a website that will help ideas and inventions prosper (taking into account current reality, as the website will have to exist in it). Not about starting a revolution to overturn current law or capitalistic structures. (If you're into the latter, I may be with you, but in this thread it seems slightly off topic. )
In the world I live in, inventors contact manufacturers because they simply don't have the $$$ to fund manufacturing and marketing of their inventions. Most companies will only jump on the train when they are granted a certain exclusivity to the product (patent or not) - that will limit the risk of investment, because it will buy the company time to break even. (Same with books by the way, if you grant ten publishers the right to publish it, chances are that *nobody* will do it.) So when the inventor doesn't bring the right for the invention (because he doesn't own it), the company will likely shy away from the investment. Result: no product. Not sure what's apologetic about that. Problems can be overcome - but the first step is to acknowledge, not to ignore them.
Just look at the five most recent ideas on the site. *None* of them can be built by the average Joe. After answering numerous unsolved questions and overcoming technical hurdles, they need to be produced in a factory. Open source communities typically don't run factories, so you'll need a manufacturer. So we're heading for the capitalistic production process, which means that in the end, the product won't be free anymore. I don't see any way around this, because these are tangible products which actually cost money to produce (unlike open source software which can be copied with the touch of a button). If the end user wouldn't pay, somebody else would have to.
So if my theory isn't flawed, then the community effort would have to exclude production. That however would violate the wiki/open source idea, because someone else would make money off the group work by selling it (that is, if it doesn't just sit there because nobody can gain exclusive rights). And once *someone* makes money anyway, I wonder why the guys who actually contributed to the invention are excluded. If I'd be contributing to such a site, I'd feel exploited.
In the world I live in, inventors contact manufacturers because they simply don't have the $$$ to fund manufacturing and marketing of their inventions. Most companies will only jump on the train when they are granted a certain exclusivity to the product (patent or not) - that will limit the risk of investment, because it will buy the company time to break even. (Same with books by the way, if you grant ten publishers the right to publish it, chances are that *nobody* will do it.) So when the inventor doesn't bring the right for the invention (because he doesn't own it), the company will likely shy away from the investment. Result: no product. Not sure what's apologetic about that. Problems can be overcome - but the first step is to acknowledge, not to ignore them.
Just look at the five most recent ideas on the site. *None* of them can be built by the average Joe. After answering numerous unsolved questions and overcoming technical hurdles, they need to be produced in a factory. Open source communities typically don't run factories, so you'll need a manufacturer. So we're heading for the capitalistic production process, which means that in the end, the product won't be free anymore. I don't see any way around this, because these are tangible products which actually cost money to produce (unlike open source software which can be copied with the touch of a button). If the end user wouldn't pay, somebody else would have to.
So if my theory isn't flawed, then the community effort would have to exclude production. That however would violate the wiki/open source idea, because someone else would make money off the group work by selling it (that is, if it doesn't just sit there because nobody can gain exclusive rights). And once *someone* makes money anyway, I wonder why the guys who actually contributed to the invention are excluded. If I'd be contributing to such a site, I'd feel exploited.