For Hardware Makers, Sharing Their Secrets Is Now Part of the Business Plan

jeremy · 03-30-2015, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Facebook showed plans last week for drone aircraft that beam lasers conveying high-speed data to remote parts of the world.

As powerful as that sounds, Facebook already has something that could be even more potent: a huge sharing of its once-proprietary information, the kind of thing that would bring a traditional Silicon Valley patent lawyer to tears.

Facebook is not alone. Technology for big computers, electric cars and high-technology microcontrollers to operate things like power tools and engines is now given away.

These ideas used to be valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. To the new generation of technologists, however, moving projects and data fast overrides the value of making everything in secret.

Of course, the idea of swapping ideas has been commonplace for decades in software. Open-source projects like the Linux operating system revolutionized the Internet and tripped up once great companies like Sun Microsystems.

“The Arduino microcontroller, drones, 3-D printers, the Raspberry Pi — people share designs and information on all these things,” said Dale Dougherty, creator of the Maker Faire and the chief executive of Make Media. “A lot of companies are adopting this mind-set too.”

While it is not strictly open source, the Raspberry Pi, a computer costing as little as $30, uses Linux and has a large community of developers who share information.

When companies do make hardware free, Mr. Dougherty said, it is not usually altruistic. “It can create competition for your enemy without spending money on a new product,” he said. He noted that IBM went into open-source software in the 1990s, and Microsoft suffered.

More at The New York Times...

--jeremy

fatmac · 05-01-2015, 03:05 AM

IBM gave us the PC design, but Microsoft quickly tied it in to their Operating System.

People must have knowledge to counter that type of problem, & the internet is giving it to them.

Companies must produce good quality products to survive, at sensible prices, else word gets around via the internet.