Robin Good and his crew at Master New Media have republished our overview article for We magazine on open design and distributed manufacturing, and as usual, they have done a stellar job in the presentation, which makes the message a quantum leap more powerful I think.
The new version is entitled:
How Peer Production And The Economic P2P Model Can Subvert / Transform The World Of Physical Production
and here’s the intro:
“Is it true that the same method of peer and open production that has been dominating the world of open source software and freely available (often user-generated) content on the internet, is now also deeply influencing the way we think about designing and even making things?
Peer production occurs when communities of volunteers create open content that is meant to be usable, shareable, and freely redistributable by everybody.
Though this approach has proven to work great on the Web (think of Linux), is peer production ready to subvert the economic models of the physical world?
The capitalistic-based market, which is the economic system where you and I live and work inside, works pretty much this way:
“Means of production are privately owned, corporations are internally organized as hierarchies, and resources are allocated through the signals that are given through market prices. If the profit is interesting enough, corporations will allocate resources in that direction and pay the necessary staff.”
Peer production instead, promotes a different system based on open knowledge, software and design communities. Members are first-hand connected with production companies, and fund their members directly. But not only. Companies indirectly support the infrastructure of cooperation of the commons on which they depend, sharing back the benefits with the open design communities.
For an in-depth view of P2P-based, peer production, and how open communities and open design work, follow Michel Bauwens, the world P2P evangelist inside this explanatory article and decide for yourself whether this an emerging reality or just a dream.”