Thoughts on P2P production and deployment of physical objects

Our Italian friend Marco Fioretti, of the social-catholic free software advocacy group Eleutheros, a man with a longstanding experience in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, has summarized a discussion we have on the specific difficulties of using peer to peer methods in the sphere of real physical production.

Marco summarizes the other contributions, and strongly challenges them.

Here only the abstract and the conclusion, so go to the full article for the concrete case studies and objections.

Marco Fioretti:

1. Abstract

These days there is a great interest in finding ways to build a more open and balanced society through social structures, legal frameworks, proper education and innovative technical practices. The goal is to enable as many people as possible to produce, independently or directly collaborating with other individuals without any intermediary or delegation of power, everything one needs to live happily, creatively and sustainably. P2P networks for digital distribution and the P2P Free/Open Source software development model are often taken as examples to apply to other fields, due to their evident success.

This article is an edited summary of two email conversations which took place among a few subscribers of the p2p-research mailing list during spring of 2008 about the applicability of P2P development models to physical objects and infrastructures. It first sums two independent P2P visions or proposals: microelectronics manufacturing and deployment of telecom networks. Next follow my (Marco F.) comments and objections to each case study. The last chapter presents some general conclusions and questions about intrinsical limits of P2P production of physical objects or about its very necessity in some areas: if, to which extent, how and (maybe the more important part) where and when the P2P production models for immaterial products and services can be applied to the production and deployment of physical objects and infrastructures. ”

2. Conclusion

Before concluding, let’s remind where we started from: are there limit to “P2P production and deployment of physical objects”? Is it possible and desirable in any field? What is the best scale for production, deployment and management of (networks of) complex physical objects? Can centralization be thoroughly substituted by appropriate scale as in the P2P movement? (the two last questions were asked to me by other participants in the threads).

Let’s first sum up a few key points:

* With immaterial objects, design (and compilation when applicable) is also all it takes to manufacture and maintain. In those cases, design is production.

* If you cannot manufacture something you need by yourself in a sustainable way (whatever “sustainable” means for you), it doesn’t matter much if you can design it.

Generally speaking, I agree that decreasing the scale of some human enterprises would increase the quality of life for everyone and that more P2P than there is today would be a good thing. This said, I think that the comments and objections to the two case studies highlight a few general issues which deserve attention.

The first is that, in any given age, P2P production of physical objects is only possible and economically meaningful where the complexity of those objects and of all the tools needed to build them from raw materials is so high as is the case of microelectronics today. Using in a P2P way sophisticated integrated circuits, instead, to build something new, is already possible today and maybe should receive more attention. Of course, “complexity” is a function of the state of technology: what is impossible today may very well become absolutely ordinary bricolage some time in the future. What matters is not to underestimate the limits of current technology, that is to not confuse Research with Development.

The second, very general advice that comes from this analysis is that accepting as good, or proposing, P2P-only societies or lifestyles on assumptions like “today, cost of software is zero and cost of computer hardware is nearing zero” may generate frustration, to say the least. Computer hardware, FPGAs and things like the BUG or any other microelectronics device, are “nearing zero cost” only because produced in diametrically opposed ways to P2P philosophy and techniques, and this is not going to change in the near/medium term. With respect to “the cost of software being zero”… Linux, mass access to the Internet and all the empowerment this implies, digital creative works and P2P networks were and remain cheap to produce, use, distribute and co-develop in innovative ways just because they rely on (should we say “live completely inside”?) a huge quantity of physical objects (computers and networks) which are affordable only because of mass, centralized production.

This may be a temporary inconvenient, of course, but let’s move to the third and most interesting general point, which is: maybe there are some areas of human activity where, regardless of the technology level of any given period, the ideal scale may not be the P2P one, but something much closer to the much larger one used to produce the same good and services today.

While this shold not be meant in any way as a full endorsement of the current system, the fact that many “centralizations” of today do more harm than good is not a rigorous proof that any conceivable centralization is always bad period. Couldn’t it be that P2P, which remains a good thing, isn’t really doable nor desirable in some areas, telecom networks being one of them, because it wouldn’t really improve quality of life? Are we really sure that “anything large in scale should be broken down, decentralized”?

Look at the Internet or at mobile phone networks. They make P2P and Free Software development possible and can greatly lower the costs of many self-entrepreneurs, from African fishermen to web 2.0 gurus, or make public officials more accountable and easier to control. But in order for all this to physically work at the smallest possible cost, the physical infrastructure must be as homogeneous and obeying to centralized technical specifications as possible. Ditto for the specs of the single parts constituting it. What you need to decentralize on the Internet, in order to build a fairer world and to make the P2P culture prosper, is things like DNS management, Net neutrality, production of application software. Let’s decentralize the right things at the right level.

I wonder if this last point may be some sort of general “law”, if you’ll forgive me this term, which puts some intrinsical, upper limit on what P2P can do or on what it should be used for. As Einstein put it, “everything should be made as simple as possible – but not simpler”.

Living cells, ants or bees can organize themselves spontaneously in a P2P-like manner without any supervisor or mass-produced machinery. Human beings, on the other hand, have both physical and intangible needs which are a tiny bit more complex than those of bees. Think to affordable and open access to quality education, culture in all its forms, communication or advanced health care. Think to services like weather forecasts reliable enough to minimize human casualties or food waste. Unlike food, clothes and shelter all these things demand (at least) lots of physical objects which cannot be made from scratch at home, together with very large and sophisticated (=expensive) physical networks like the Internet, professionally built and managed.

Even if the cost problem didn’t exist, technologically sophisticated activities imply specialization, which sooner or later brings the need for coordination and some form of centralization. Is there any way to completely escape this fact without giving up all the real benefits on quality of life which are possible with today’s technologies?

What about aiming directly for a mixed model, instead, one where decentralized (P2P) and centralized activities mutually enforce each other? It may be not only much easier to build (by forcing the current system to evolve, instead of starting over): it may actually be the best possible solution, even better than a 100% P2P one.”

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