Open collaborative design/Intro

Open collaborative design involves applying principles from the remarkable free and open-source software movement that provides a powerful new way to design artefacts, machines and physical systems. All the information involved in the creation of the item is made available on the Internet – textual information, drawings, photographs and 3D CAD models – so other people can freely re-create that design, or help contribute to its further evolution.

The basis of this development model is a principle called 'copyleft' which applies terms of use to creative works in such a way that anyone can freely use or customise them either for a personal or shared purpose. Derivative works often inherit the same terms as well, meaning that anything based on the original can also be freely used too. This principle ensures that 'copylefted' works – whether they are designs, text, artwork or computer code – are effectively gifted to humanity, adding to an ever increasing universal 'commons'. And because this principle is to the benefit of everyone, it completely changes the way that people think about contributing their time, creativity and efforts to these kind of projects.

This nascent field has huge potential to radically change the way we create goods, machines and solutions – both for personal items and ultimately for the material goods and infrastructure necessary to provide for needs of the global population.