The Merits of Open Source

I have observed that people here seem to favor totally open source design.
I see people selling kits for open source designs and making a profit from them without any investment in the development.
It takes a long time to design a 3D printer. I am wondering if a practice wherein a design would be free for private use but a small royalty be payable to the designer for commercial use be more productive?

what you suggested is basically a patent on a licensing deal. If i wanted to print out a patented design, there's really nothing stopping me from doing so any utilizing it privately, it's when I try to sell a patented design without any sort of licensing agreement is when I can be sued for infringing a patent.

In my opinion, if someone wants to take an open source design, assemble it, and sell for profit, it's really not that big of a deal. In the end you're paying for their labor, as most of the open source designs are made from materials that are readily available. If I wanted to build say a Prusa Mendel, I am free to pick from any source I choose, I'm not limited to one sole company/person.

Quote
Ralph.Hilton
I am wondering if a practice wherein a design would be free for private use but a small royalty be payable to the designer for commercial use be more productive?

You mean a non-commercial licence? Has been done for a number of designs, e.g. the E3D hotend and Generation 7 Electronics.

It doesn't really work out:

- Open Source purists consider it to be "not Open Source" and evil, so you line of defense is very weak, no backing from the community.

- These cheapo copiers copy anyways. They copy closed source designs as well, after all.

- People buy 90% by price. Even if you manage to defend the non-commercial clause, you can't make a profit anyways. Cheap copies win, as long as they're cheap.

- Adjectant services, like support, user help and similar are expected to be free. You see these postings "I bought off ebay and have no clue, please help"-postings in this forum every day. And there are people which do help - or flame the design, not the seller.

IMHO, the only way to live in an Open Source world is to hide designs until they're ready to ship, then flooding the market. There's a month or so advantage over the cheapo copiers, that's your opportunity. See Kickstarter & Co. for successful profits. Once this month is gone, you loose some 50% of business. It'll dwindle further close to zero within a year if the cheapo copies happen to work.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY