The use of Open Source
The quality of a product depends on the 'components' or other products its built with, using Open Source licenses you can create a better product by sharing your recipe so that others might improve it. Development costs can be covered by funds invested due to the need for your produce or support/guarantees you offer. In the ICT sector, this concept is already proven by Google for instance (Android OS).
Nah.. this stuff is way too technical for me.
Currently the licenses are mostly used in Information Technology but there is no reason why it couldn't be used elsewhere on the market. As the Relative foundation's objective is to encourage technological development, in my opinion,any sector would greatly benefit from it as any sector could build on each others research instead of having to reinvent the weel.
How am I supposed to make a profit?!
In the software industry there are multiple examples of successfully implemented methods of making a profit with open source. One way is an Open source marketplace, where interested parties can buy and/or fund projects and developers can sell them. Another way is to freely distribute your product and earn your income by selling SLA's (Service Level Agreements, or payed support).
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Free Beer is a beer which is free in the sense of freedom, not in the sense of free beer.
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Comments
Open source hardware is
Open source hardware is slowly getting started. There are some examples, such as phones or cars, but one movement I'd like to share is the FabLab movement. A FabLab is a small-scale workshop where individuals can use advanced tools (3D printers, laser cutters, etc.) to make prototypes and functional products from their own designs.
The Protospace Lab (http://www.protospace.nl/) in Utrecht is a great place that I visited recently. They also provide a platform for sharing designs. And since they're linked to other FabLab's in the world, it becomes possible to make a design and produce it all over the world.
Open Source in other places than IT
I really like the idea of having other industries to adopt the general idea of information sharing and open source. This could really prevent a lot of overhead on many different fields. However I remain a bit skeptical because I can't imagine power and money greedy multimillion+ companies to give away their knowledge to competing companies. All information about technology should be free and accessible to anyone in my opinion but nowadays there are still too much powerful companies and governments that are reluctant to hand out information about technology. In the IT sector and mainly on the internet you see that freedom of information is more widely and commonly more accepted then in the rest of (non virtual) society I have hopes that society will take the Open Source as an example of we can share information and all benefit.
lol, the ways of humanity
On that greed point I agree, pity not everyone shares my opinion that money is a way to reach a goal and not a goal it self ;) Open Source can be a much more efficient way, often underestimated and overseen.
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