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 physical objects, machines and systems. All information involved in creating the object or system is made available on the Internet – such as text, drawings, photographs and 3D computer-aided design (CAD) models – so that other people can freely re-create it, or help contribute to its further evolution. It is essentially the same principle that is used to progress science.

An essential element of this development model is a principle called 'copyleft'  (symbol: ) which is a way of assigning 'terms of use' to a creative work to make sure that anyone can freely use it or build upon it. Often a copyleft license will state that any derivative works must inherit the same terms as well, ensuring anything based on the original is freely available too. This principle means that 'copylefted' items – whether they are designs, text, artwork or computer code – are effectively gifted to humanity, adding to an ever increasing universal 'commons'. Because this principle is to the benefit of everyone, it completely changes the way that people think about contributing their time and effort to these projects. This principle already works very effectively with many high profile, successful software projects, so this is not merely wishful thinking.

Open collaborative design is a nascent field that has huge potential to radically change the way we create goods, machines and systems – not only for personal items but all the way up to components of national or global infrastructure.