Open source technolgy & dead vehicle makers
This afternoon my mind wandered into a patch of thinking I'd gone over several times before. It has to do with open source and green technology.
Here's how I reason this out ... "green" is a bad word because it's too vague to make sense of what we mean. The better word is "Sustainable", which has a fairly obvious meaning long term survivability, long term existence, etc. There's a lot of talk about Sustainability nowadays as a desired goal so it's useful to think about some aspects of sustainability.
Say a vendor, uh.. Vixterc, make a really nice electric lawnmower that everybody falls in love with etc. But the company ends up in trouble and goes belly up, stranding all the purchasers of Vixterc lawnmowers without parts or support. This lawnmower which was supposed to enable more sustainability, because the maker went out of business, was not itself sustainable. Further the death of the vendor hinders everybody's ability to become sustainable.
That's assuming the Vixterc Corporation follows typical corporate practice and makes their lawnmower a closed source proprietary widget, and actively prevents their customers from reverse engineering or modifying the lawnmower.
Therefore I think the typical business practice with the proprietary model is not compatible with the sustainability goal. And that the model which promotes sustainability is open source.
To help with understanding of why.. consider The Open Source Definition. It defines Open Source as
- Free Redistribution
- Source Code
- Derived Works
- Integrity of The Author's Source Code
- No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
- No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
- Distribution of License
- License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
- License Must Not Restrict Other Software
- License Must Be Technology-Neutral
Some of those features are related to open source software but it's plausible to transliterate the features to other fields. There is also licenses similar to this for freely redistributable documentation and hardware designs. In any case I like the Open Source Definition because it explains a lot of the principles of why this is important for sustainable technology.
The ability to derive new works from a given design, the ability to reuse the design in other works, the ability to mingle two designs together, etc. That allows a lot of freedom to the end users that in turn allows the end users to adapt the technology as they need. It also gives them freedom from vendors dying etc. It also promotes something like fermentation where a bunch of people can work on similar designs, share ideas back and forth, and all of us gain in the process.
It also means a given design can live on and on if it's successful at what it's trying to do. In other words open source directly supports sustainability. And as I said, closed source (proprietary) hinders sustainability.
Well, that last is a little too broadly put. If the closed source widget is designed using standardized interfaces then someone could substitute other widgets. Such as those of us who have modified an electric bicycle by replacing the vendors motor (or controller) with a 3rd party motor or controller. The fact that electric motors fall into a few standardized designs makes it possible for others to provide controllers that work with those standardized designs. That's not open source but it's almost as good as open source.
Uh, seems I drank deep of the koolaid over the last few years.
What inspired this? I was working on a scooter I own made by a defunct manufacturer. (Vego 600sx) The fact that I'm able to continue modifying that Vego 600sx is due to the absolute sheer simplicity of the electrical systems on these low end scooters.
But as the vehicles are more complex (cough cough Vectrix cough cough) it's more difficult .. right?
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Re: Open source technolgy & dead vehicle makers
Exactly; actually, capitalist "free-market" economics (which for some reason a strict interpretation of "intellectual property rights" always gets lumped in with) don't do very good at sustainability in lots of other ways too. And the recent trend toward firms obtaining ridiculously broad patents for things that would have never been patentable in the past is hurting things more.
There is no reason an electric vehicle needs any patented components at all. One exception being the very harmful broad patent claim that Phostech has on the LiFePO4 cathode material. I suspect that Thundersky probably in for some serious legal challenges soon.
The Vectrix always seem unnecesarily, gratuitously complex to me - probably so they could patent something in it.
By the way, applying the computer software terms "closed source" and "open source" to physical inventions is not correct. Patent law is a lot different that copyright law.
The real remedy for when a patents and overly expensive or unavailable licensing gets in the way of technologies needed to address environmental imperatives is the same as is used for some anti-aids drugs in poorer nations - compulsory licensing. The government simply tells the corporation that there is a compelling public interest that overrides their patent "rights". Yes, compulsory licensing is "socialism". Get over it.
Re: Open source technolgy & dead vehicle makers
David, I am a fan of open-source whenever it can be applied. Pantenting and complexity of design is a delicate balance that CEO's must make a decision on with each product. When contemplating adapting an existing product, there's not much incentive for the manufacturer to accomodate the used-product adaption "second-owner" market.
To survive, they must appeal to the broadest sector of the buying public, and most people are not technical, and they like bells & whistles. As a fan of "used product" adaption (3.4L Chevy V6 in a '72 MGB?) I believe it is much cheaper to take a maxi-gasoline scooter with a fried engine, and adapt it to electric.
There comes a certain point in repair and improvement of an existing machine (factory flaw, or upgrade of a weakness) where its easier to rip everything out and adapt generic components (alltrax/kelly/etc). Forcing electric maxi-scooter engineers to repair an old British cars electrical system before they can proceed might have had a beneficial effect on their products final design.
I think it is short-sighted of gasoline scooter manufacturers that do not make one frame for both a gasoline and electric drivetrain. the major frame difference being that the swingarm would be about one foot longer to allow mounting of the electric motor on top of the swingarm just in front of the wheel. That space could be a plastic storage bin on the gas version, always a need for extra storage.
Worn gasoline versions could order a new gas engine, or make the switch to electric by simply ordering the drop-in kit. And instead of proprietary controllers and motors, the factory kit would already be an Etek/Kelly or something similar. Something programmable, the big issue being a hot-rodder frying something (nobody HERE ever does that, right?) and trying to get a warrantee claim.
Some customers might accept lower acceleration from 48V if it meant a longer range with fat-AH entry-level SLA batteries, but others will want better acceleration and top-speed of 72V because they can afford Lithiums.
I can buy a NEW gasoline 150cc maxi-scoot with dual-disc brakes and 16" wheels for $1200. If it had a longer swingarm, it would be a great candidate to adapt rather than bying a factory electric maxi-scooter.
Just some rambling thoughts (could be the Nyquil and Zicam talking) but yeah, open source rocks \m/