open(d) frontier single page format final version with full bibliography

8/3/2019 Open(d) Frontier Single Page Format Final Version With Full Bibliography

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The Open(d) Frontier:

open source + open designKevin Henry, IDSA (COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO)

Barbed Wire (2) by James Whitesmith (creative commons)


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EVERYTHING IS DATAFrom printed brochures to the stamped body panels ofautomobiles everything today is data. Every process em-ployed to realize a design artifact has to go through thelter of data and data manipulation of one sort or another.The MacBook Pro I am typing this essay on was gener-

ated by data which was constantly shuttled back and forthfrom designer to engineer to tool-and-die maker. Even the

physical books that I quote throughout this essay beganas data despite the fact that many of them are printed ar-tifacts. The former separation between design disciplinesis blurring due in large part to data. For this reason all thedisciplines need to better understand data and how it willshape the future in all of its manifestations. Perhaps thebest place to begin then is at the source- open source.This essay has been divided into two parts: the rst deals

briey with some of the history of the internet and open

source movements which inform open design while thesecond part deals more specically with the impacts of so-

cial innovation and open design.

OPEN SOURCE: A DIGITAL MEMEThe open source software movement has impacted cul-ture far beyond the freedom to adapt, modify, and con-

tinuously rene its agship Linux software. Open sourcehas become a technological meme spreading its infec-tious ideas much like the human genome transmits its bio-

logical information. And while the internet has been theideal platform to communally develop software, it has alsobeen a great model of collaborative development result-ing in an open architecture. Creating a system as complexand robust as the internet has taken thousands of peopleworking millions of hours. Perhaps the biggest irony is that

the internet was created without the internet. People foundways to communicate and incrementally add their knowl-edge to that of others to accomplish an enormous task.

The early pioneers of ARPANET (the predecessor to to-days internet) developed an early forum referred to asrequest for comments. These peer-reviewed documentsdescribed and recorded working methods, research, and

incremental innovations. It also formed a communal ar-chive of technical knowledge that charted the continuoushistorical evolution of Internet standards and practices.These documents were made available to everyone on thenetwork and could only be amended by publishing a newdocument. Such a collaborative process mimics in manyways the revisions that occur in open source software. Tux, the Linux Mascot by Larry Ewing

The color photograph we hang in afram on the wall really just pure data.

Injection molded parts must be builtin a CAD program if they are to ever

be physically manufactured.

PART 1: OPEN SOURCE


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OPEN ARCHITECTURE AS CODE:The architecture of the web consists of four independentlayers with separate protocols that allow for the shuttling ofdata across the network. The intelligence unlike previousbroadcast technologies is not in the thing itself but rather

at the edges or ends of the network. Legal scholar andCreative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig refers to thisend-to-end (e2e) reality as essential to the neutrality ofthe internet. He writes in his book The Future of Ideas:the fate of the commons in a connected world:

.....complexity and intelligence in the net-work are pushed away from the network itself,arguably no principle of network architecturehas been more important to the success ofthe Internet than this single principle of net-work designe2e.1

The internets architecture is inseparable, in Lessigs mind,from the code. If the conduit through which data passescan be controlled then certain data (information) can berestricted while other data can be permitted and even am-

plied. Lessig sees these as intimately intertwined:

..... how the Internet was designed intimatelyaffected the freedoms and controls that it hasenabled. The code of cyberspaceits archi-tecture and the software and hardware thatimplement that architectureregulates life in

cyberspace generally. Its code is its law. Or,in the words of Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) cofounder Mitch Kapor, Architecture ispolitics.2

Architecture is politics and politics too often means control.The history of the world has been dened by who controlsthe message(s). With the development of the internet-ironically begun as a Cold-War effort to ensure communi-cation in the event of a nuclear war- we have the rst plat-

form that is truly democratic. Few could have imagined theunintended consequences: a data revolution larger thanGutenbergs, and with the advent of the rst commercialweb browser in 1995, this revolution was made availableto anyone with a computer and a domain name. Fifteenyears later its available to anyone with a mobile phone.

1 Te Future of Ideas: Te Fate of the Commons in a Con-nected World, Lawrence Lessig, Vintage (2002) p. 322 ibid, p. 33

Lawrence Lessigs The Future of IdeasThis work is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution-NoncommercialLicense (US/v3.0). (Downloaded fromthe website as a free pdf)


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RE-MIX CULTUREThe combination of malleable digital data and open archi-tecture has created a culture of creative re-mixing. Mediatheorist and author Clay Shirky describes in his book HereComes Everyone, that:

Communication media was between onesender and one recipient. This is a one-to-one

pattern- I talk and you listen, then you talkand I listen. Broadcast media was betweenone sender and many recipients, and the re-cipients couldnt talk back. This is a one-to-many pattern- I talk, and talk, and talk, andall you can do is choose to listen or tune out.The pattern we didnt have until recently wasmany-to-many, where communication toolsenabled group conversation.3

All media in the past was discrete. It had proprietary for-mats and separate equipment or technology. With digitaldata this has all but disappeared. On a single device- myMacBook Pro for example- I can create radio shows (pod-

casts); I can edit and broadcast movies (youtube); and Ican mix music (garageband). I can distribute everythingI create directly from my computer easily and freely. Ad-ditionally everyone else with the same tools can take whatIve created and, in most cases, edit it, alter it, amend it,and re-distribute it. This capability, according to Law-rence Lessig, has created a re-mix culture as the subtitle

of his book suggests: making art and commerce thrive inthe hybrid economy. Of course this has also created ma-

jor problems related to copyright. Lessig and other legalscholars have been actively writing about these issuesbecause the law cant deal with the materials alone (mu-sic, image, text, lm and so on) without considering thecode that materializes them and allows for re-mixing.

MASS COLLABORATIONBuilding upon and altering the ideas of other peers has

become an essential part of the digital revolutions rapidgrowth and expansion of knowledge. This mass collabora-tion applies today as easily to software development as it

does to the collective effort to build an on-line encyclope-dia (Wikipedia and countless other wikis), the on-linesharing of instruction sets to build, alter, or modify new andexisting objects (instructables.com), and the remixing ofmusical source code from downloadable les (Nine Inch

3 Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky, Penguin (2008) p.86-87

Lawrence Lessigs book: Remix

Wikipedia combines the power of thewiki (Hawiian for quick) with an in-terested public.

Clay Shirkys subtext- the power oforganizing without organizations


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Nails). The open innovation that open source has inspiredhas captured the imagination of business writers, legalscholars, scientists, designers, and even manufacturers(to name but a few). Many are proclaiming a completelynew paradigm has emerged for approaching problems

and collaboratively developing solutions that will changethe way everything is eventually done.

Authors like Don Tapscott (Wikinomics and Macrowiki-nomics) see the application of mass collaboration as thepanacea to so many of our contemporary ills while othercommentators like Nicholas Carr (The Shallows: Whatthe Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, The Big Switch) ismore cautious. Yocai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks)

and Lawrence Lessig (Code, The Future of Ideas, FreeCulture, Remix, etc.) not only see this as an essentialpart of innovation but have also used the technology of theinternet to disseminate their works for free while encour-

aging others to adapt and re-mix them.

Lawrence Lessig takes particular comfort in the fact thatnone other than Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declara-

tion of Independence, wrote so vehemently about sharingand the impossibility of an idea remaining the sole prop-erty of a single individual:

If nature has made any one thing less sus-ceptible than all others of exclusive property,it is the action of the thinking power called

an idea, which an individual may exclusivelypossess as long as he keeps it to himself; butthe moment it is divulged, it forces itself intothe possession of every one, and the receiv-er cannot dispossess himself of it. Its pecu-liar character, too, is that no one possessesthe less, because every other possesses thewhole of it. He who receives an idea from me,receives instruction himself without lessen-ing mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,receives light without darkening me.4

COMMON(S) KNOWLEDGEJeffersons proclamations sound out of place in a con-temporary world obsessed with extending copyright andtrademark indenitely, yet he understood that ideas likecommon lands can generate greater wealth when shared

4 Te Future of Ideas: Te Fate of the Commons in a Con-nected World, Lawrence Lessig, Vintage (2002) p. 94

He who receives an idea from me,receives instruction himself withoutlessening mine; as he who lights histaper at mine, receives light withoutdarkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Cows on Selsley Common - geograph.org.uk - 192472.jpg Sharon Loxtonand is licensed for reuse under theCreative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 2.0 license.


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wisely. Concepts like commonwealth and common knowl-edge have lost much of their traditional meaning but withthe advent of an open web architecture and greater shar-ing and collaboration they are regaining new meaning.The term the commons has proven to be a very robust

concept for our new century with contested meanings.

TRAGIC COMMONS?In 1968 ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote an inuential es-say The Tragedy of the Commons (Science) in whichhe used the metaphor of common land shared by cattleherders to demonstrate the larger problem of populationgrowth. He explained that if the herders only consideredtheir individual needs and not those of the community theywould overgraze the land thus risking the possibility thatno one could use it. Over the years this essay became agalvanizing factor against reasonable sharing of common

assets. Its through the work of economists like Elinor Os-

trom- 2010 Noble laureate in economics- and the rampantgift economy that the web has produced that Hardinsthesis has been largely dis proven.

Lessig established the Creative Commons license in 2001as a virtual commons complete with digital tools and re-sources to foster greater sharing and collaboration. Simi-

larly Richard Stallman, the original instigator of free soft-ware movement (also known as the GNU Project whichstands for GNUs not Unix), formalized the rst copyleftlicense in an effort to supply a legal document that allowed

free adaptation to existing materials. The impulse for Co-pyleft, an obvious reversal of the term copyright, originallyemerged from the same 1970s California computer andhacker culture (The Homebrew Computer Club) thatsupported and encouraged Steve Jobs and Steve Woz-

niak. The enthusiasts, then like now, included both pro-fessionals and amateurs interested in programming andbuilding computers and learning from each other.

SUMMARY

Open source software development combined with theopen architecture of the web has allowed collaborationson a scale unimaginable in the past. These developmentscombined with other digital tools have provided amateursand professionals alike the chance to share and learn fromeach other in a far more dynamic way than any previous

media. Clay Shirky had dubbed this new found collabora-tive power and social innovation cognitive surplus andhas suggested that humans working together will be ableto tackle truly large scale problems and projects.

The GNU mascot by Etienne Suvasa

The copyleft logo turned the copy-right logo literally on its head.

The creative commons logo can nowbe found on millions of derivativeworks.


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DESIGNS BIG CHALLENGEThe world is approaching a tipping point. In the next twodecades the effects of climate change are anticipated toseverely impact the production of crops and the availabilityof potable water. Extreme weather is expected to ravagecoastal areas while the incidence of hurricanes and tor-

nadoes is predicted to rise requiring regular rebuilding ofcities, towns, and villages. The availability of cheap oil willdisappear leaving only peak oil and energy resources thatare difcult, expensive, and environmentally dangerous toextract. Emerging economies with large populations likeChina and India will require more of these increasingly pre-cious resources to continue their expansions while satisfy-ing their own domestic populations. And nally, the globalpopulation which is expected to reach 8 billion people by

then will further strain every natural resource on the planet.

Writer and futurist Alex Steffen (author of Worldchanging:

A Users Guide for the 21st Century) describes that thecurrent global mode of consumption requires between 5and 10 planets to sustain it. He points out in his TEDTALKpodcast that the lions share of that consumption comesdirectly from North America. He also notes however that

others around the planet, while not necessarily wishing tomirror US consumption patterns, will desire a higher qual-ity of life than they currently have. Steffen summarizes hisconcerns as follows:

We dont know yet how to build a societywhich is environmentally sustainable, whichis shareable with everybody on the planet,which promotes stability and democracy andhuman rights, and which is achievable in thetime-frame necessary to make it through thechallenges we face. 5

Some of the conditions Steffen describes such as a soci-

ety that is shareable with everyone, and that promotesstability and democracy and human rights is happening.And in places like Egypt and North Africa we are witness-

ing the power of social media and social innovation. Peo-ple there are uniting behind common concerns and creat-ing a powerful unied voice through simple and accessiblesocial media like facebook and twitter. These simple-to-use platforms and tools (mobile phones, ip cameras, and

5 EDALK, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alex_stefen_sees_a_sustainable_uture.html

World Changing: A Users Guide forthe 21st Century (edited by Alex Stef-fen)

Twitter has become an extremelypowerful tool using very simple mo-bile phone technology to connect vastnumbers of people together.

PART 2: OPEN DESIGN


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computers) are allowing large groups to mobilize, orga-nize, and communicate with the larger world. The memeof openness is spreading in unimaginable ways.

While the recent events are very promising developments

in order for these revolution to succeed, the real work be-gins by building sustainable and economically feasiblecommunities. In many advanced industrialized countries

a similar ground swell is occurring not around political op-pression but rather around passive consumption. A newgeneration of citizen designers (professionals and ama-teurs alike) have been inspired by open source develop-ments and re-mix culture and are now collaborating withthese same social media tools as well as rapid prototyping

technologies to develop alternative modes of productionand consumption. Before exploring this more thoroughlyits necessary to look rst at some recent history sparkingthese new developments.

PROSUMPTION INSTEAD OF CONSUMPTIONCertainly design has contributed directly to the dilemmaAlex Steffen describes in his book and his talks. Poorlydesigned buildings that waste valuable energy on heatingand cooling; bad urban development and mass transpor-tation systems that force a greater reliance on cars creat-

ing greater urban and suburban sprawl; large scale manu-facturing that exploits cheap energy to ship raw materialsaround the globe in search of cheap labor; and nallygraphic design and marketing communication that contrib-

ute disposable artifacts to propel further thoughtless con-sumption. While not all design ts into this unsustainablemodel a large percentage of it unfortunately does.

One reason this model has been so compelling is that it

has generated great wealth for more people in the worldthan at any other time in history. And while that wealth isnot always equally shared (for example salaries of CEOsin the U.S. range from 300 to 550 times that of the averageworker) the trickle down effect has created overall stability

while increasing life span, educational opportunities, bet-ter health care, and more leisure time for large numbers ofpeople- especially those in industrialized countries. Anoth-

er reason that the model has not been questioned is thatits evolution has been slow, incremental, and evolution-ary. For those workers not directly displaced by technol-ogy the advance of technological change has been quitespectacular. Who could have imagined a handheld wire-less device capable of displaying video downloaded froma data cloud twenty years ago? Such rapid technologicaladvances hold within them both the kernel of todays prob-

Time Magazine (1949) cover withRaymond Loewy amidst trains, planes,buses, and cars

The standard sales curve was a bellcurve with a steep incline over a shortperiod of time to sell the overproduc-tion created in the factory.


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lems as well as the promise of tomorrows solutions.

COMPARING CURVESSimply by comparing two very different sets of data- rep-resented by two very different types of curve- the differ-ence in approach of traditional marketing and distributionversus the so-called long tail of the internet should beapparent. In 1949 Time Magazine featured the industrial

designer Raymond Loewy on its cover amidst every imag-inable product category from travel to consumer products,furniture, packaging and ofce products. Loewy represent-ed the protean designer capable of transforming the mun-dane into the magical with great commercial success. Theauthor of the Time magazine article describes the powerof design to remake ugly products into beautiful desirableproducts:

Trim, clean-lined stoves, oil heaters, refrig-

erators and washing machines outsold theirugly predecessors and those of competi-tors. Streamlining, which had the laudablepurpose of cutting down wind resistance intrains, cars, etc., became such a craze that itwas even inicted on such static objects asdesk sets. Little by little the hardy, strugglingband (of industrial designers) proved thattheir artistry could draw that prettiest curveof all to businessmenan upward-sweepingsales curve.6

Loewys upward-sweeping curve represented millions ofunits sold over a relatively short period of time. This wasthe only way to rationalize large captial investment. Nowcontrast this curve with its inverse: a downward-sweeping

curve that appears to go on forever. A long thin tail not un-like that of a rat that represents a completely different wayof reaching consumers. In this scenario a very specicconsumer can be targeted: the reach is not as fast but ismuch longer. The rst curve (the so-called economies of

scale) is proving to be an unsustainable model while thesecond one demonstrates whats happening in the neweconomy of the internet. In a an environment that is not

one-to-many or one-size-ts-all we have a new modelthat can re-imagine the world to be more interactive butalso more sustainable.

Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson dubbed

6 ime Magazine October 31st 1949 (p.3 of on-line article): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/arti-cle/0,9171,801030-3,00.html

The long tail maps consumer interestnot based on Paretos principle that20% of the hits generate 80% of theprot but on real interest despite thequantities.

Chris Andersons extended version ofthe Long Tail: Why The Future of Busi-ness is Selling Less of More.


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this phenomenon the long tail because it demonstratesthat even out at the farthest reaches (the extreme righthand side) there are still sales. The long tail demonstratessome important recent developments that connect it toopen design: #1: people dont want the same things that

everyone else wants (the Pareto principle aka the 80/20rule: 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes); #2:that niche markets can thrive in a connected economy. #3:

Digital technology and an open internet will allow not onlygreater precision but also greater collaboration.

HACKING, MODDING, AND FABBINGThe open source movement has inspired countless indi-viduals (professional and amateur alike) to begin open-ing up existing products (hacking or modifying) or simplyleveraging the digital tools, social media, and rapid pro-totyping to begin developing their own products (fabbing)

and sharing them with others. While this movement is in

its infancy the signs are that it will continue to grow. Asindividuals engage in creating or modifying their own prod-ucts, the end results will be objects that are suited morespecically to their needs. Products that consumers havehad a direct hand in producing have proven to be morevaluable to them and are therefore kept longer: they pro-vide deeper meaning than more anonymous products do.

Design that brings the traditional customer (end-user) intothe design and production process will open things up todeeper meanings and greater value overall.

The main reason this has not been possible up till nowis that manufacturing has been based on large capital-in-tensive investment that had to be recouped through massproduction/distribution. This model is slowly changing aswe move from large scale production to micromanufactur-

ing which can help re-localize production just as cheap en-ergy becomes more expensive. M.I.T. engineering profes-sor Neil Gershenfelds book: Fab The Coming Revolutionon Your Desktop described this emerging trend alreadyin 2005. More recently Chris Anderson in a 2010 Wired

Magazine article The Next Industrial Revolution, AtomsAre the New Bits, detailed many examples where smallmicro-manufacturing is challenging the old paradigm.

CROWD-SOURCING DESIGNWhile these developments might seem faint and far off,

the reality is that micro-manufacturing represents a truealternative that will grow in sophistication along with therapid prototyping technology that supports it. Combiningrapid-prototyping and micro-manufacturing with new opensource platforms to crowd-source new products in small

Computer numerical machining canlink a customers data to a sophis-ticated piece of equipment and realmaterial.

Buglab is a new platform for crowdsourcing the design/manufacture ofwireless devices.


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batches like kickstarter.com, quirky.com, kluster.com, etc.the possibilities become endless. Other platforms like buglab allows the co-designing of wireless technology. Thememe that started with open source has spread into opendesign and shows no signs of slowing.

If the future is to be sustainable, production has to be re-localized. There have to be new ways of engaging the cus-

tomer more deeply in the co-production of products (pro-sumption). There have to be ways to utilize materials morewisely. And nally there have to be a ways to re-purposeor repair products for much longer life spans. All of whichrequire people working together in an open environmentof mass innovation. There has to be less production (or

more precisely-tuned production). This can only happencloser to home through localized networks of job shopsand micro-manufacturing sites similar to the hackerspac-es and makerspaces that are popping up all over. These

spaces and shared technologies allow amateurs and pro-fessionals to collaborate in close proximity as well as on-line with the larger world.

The same digital data that unites desktop publishing withdesktop manufacturing is driving rapid prototyping- every-thing is becoming data. And with open source or free CADsoftware more people than ever can develop ideas andhave them realized in a completely customizable way. Forthose amateurs struggling to learn software it is increasing-ly easy to nd communities that support learning through

on-line videos and other on-line tutorials in this explodinggift economy. Even the rapid prototyping machines have

entered the world of open source through shared plansand CAD data to build custom printers and computer nu-merical controlled mills. As the technology continues todrop in price more people will experiment with it and ap-ply it to unheard of needs. 3D printers are currently beingtested in engineering departments by chefs and bakers toextend what it is they do.

None of this could have happened without the open ar-chitecture of the internet where anyone can set up a pres-ence (or a shop) for everyone to see. The democratic im-pulse behind the webs architecture has made it possiblefor the rst time ever for small individuals to be seen bymillions of other individuals and share knowledge, ideas,or simply collaborate together. These new and exciting de-velopments have to be brought into the design classroomso that students learn to collaborate not just with other de-

signers but with everyone.

Kickstarter promotes new products byhelping to raise the necessary fundsrequired to launch a new product insmall batches.

Makerspace (Wellington, New Zea-land). The website reads: Makerspaceis a place where you can make yourideas come to life. We share tools,skills, and laughs at a central Wel-lington location. Any project is a goodproject, so bring yours to an openday, or join up for 24/7 access to thespace. We also have a mailing list ifyou wish to lurk and see what we areup to, or alternatively follow us ontwitter.com/makerspace


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Chris, The Long Tail: Why the Future ofBusiness is Selling Less of More, Hyperion (2006)

Anderson, Chris, In the Next Industrial Revolution, At-oms Are the New Bits, Wired Magazine, Jan. 25th 2010

Benkler, Yocai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: HowSocial Production Transforms Markets and FreedomYale University Press (2007)

Carr, Nicholas, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Do-ing to Our Brains, W. W. Norton & Co. (2011)Carr, Nicholas, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World,

from Edison to Google W.W. Norton & Co. (2008)

Gershenfeld, Neil, FAB: The Coming Revolution onYour Desktop--From Personal Computers to PersonalFabrication, Basic Books (2005)

Hardin, Garrett, The Tragedy of the Commons, Sci-ence 13 Vol. 162, (1968)

Kittler, Perspective and the Book, The Grey RoomJournal, MIT press (Autumn, 2001)

Kittler, Friedrich, Gramaphone, Film, Typewriter, Octo-ber MIT Press (Vol. 41. Summer, 1987)

Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of theCommons in a Connected World, Vintage (2002)

Lessig, Lawrence, Code and Other Laws of Cyber-space, Basic Books (2006)

Lessig Lawrence, Free Culture: How Big Media UsesTechnology and the Law to Lock Down Culture andControl Creativity, Penguin (2004)

Lessig, Lawrence, Remix: Making Art and CommerceThrive in the Hybrid Economy, Penguin Press (2008)

Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolu-tion of Institutions for Collective Action, CambridgeUniversity Press (1990)


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Shirky, Clay, Here Comes Everybody, Penguin (2008)

Shirky, Clay, Cognitive Surplus : Creativity and Gener-osity ina Connected Age, Penguin (2010)

Steffen, Alex, Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the21st Century, Abrams (2008)

Tapscott, Don, Williams, Anthony, Wikinomics HowMass Collaboration Changes Everything, PortfolioHardcover (2006)Tapscott, Don, Williams, Anthony, MacrowikinomicsRebooting Business and the World Portfolio Hardcov-er (2010)

Time Magazine, Modern Living Up from the Egg (Ray-

mond Loewy article), Oct. 31, 1949

Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org

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