30. Open Source Hardware vs. Software
● Have you run into Intellectual property
battles in the sex world?
● Other issues particular to open-source and
sex?
● Comments and Critiques on our Opening
Model?
Notas do Editor
I personally believe that everyone should have the freedom to create whatever they want.
Somewhat started with Coding, because the redundancy and immutability of computer code brought coders face to face with the realization that locking up IP meant that coders would have to solve the same problems over and over again, inhibiting progress.
This moved into other mechancially and digital reproducible objects like media, and things like creative commons came to help clear that up
and finally in the age of reproducing physical objects and mechanisms
Sharing Caring and Cash are the three main issues that come with
Literacy
Community connectison. -
One of the coolest things about opening a sex toy, is that consumer’s can use your documentation to know exactly what is going into their intimate products
this is especially concerning in an unregulated industry like sex toys where you could pop whatever weird chemicals you want in there
I don’t even know what at phalate is, but it sounds bad, and so we just use bodysafe silicone
something something crafter community, motivated even more by disabled people
Time- and this is really one of the main factors driving myself and our company’s reasons for open-sourcing. If your goal is to make something new for the world and see how it works, open-sourcing is your best option to keep yourself making. If you want to sit around and file paperwork in the hopes that you will be able to lock down tons of money while paranoidadly hunting for anyone who might be ripping you off, then file some patents. Elon Musk “ receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit”
Non-Competition- People are going to rip you off anyway. If you want to be an innovative new company, you aren’t going to have the cash to fight the big guys anyway.
Innovations- This is a huge unexplored realm. Weird ass shit you can make to fuck is not a finite resource and does not abide by scarcity rules. Instead the more that things i make can help out other business, like Dr. Xtreme or Bad Dragon, the larger we all spread open this realm.
The greatest threat is that some large corporation will try to use their money muscle to try to prevent you from being able to make what you created, and the best defense against this is creating as much prior art and putting it out into the world as possible
As you move from a consumer product, to hackable ideas…..intersections multiple different communitites
Legality can kill openness - We make
Georgia: can’t buzz your junk (obscene devices)
some places Can sell sex toys, but not “fetish gear”?
Is something really considered open source, if it is cut off to a large part of the population because they are under a certain age?
What’s the point of a peice of hardware being open, if material, or manufacturing costs are prohibitive to most of the world.
Do people’s sexual drives help or hinder the tinkering process. Will groups of people be motivated more to play and struggle with getting something working, or does the power of these drives promote traditional consumption?
A majority of open-source forums are targeted towards families (Maker Faires, Instructables)
Do sex toys alienate the standard community?
Are open-source sex toys more inclusive of less traditional communities of practice (cam girls, fetish workers, sexual hobbyists)?
Can the gender of those creating devices inhibit or limit the sharing of a concept’s creation? Do i make or build certain assumptions into my designs that inherently lock off others from building or modifiying a thing as they see fit b
- most commercially available software and hardware use proprietary formats or have licenses that restrict the use of work produced using them.
Eagle CAD vs. Fritzing and KaiCAD
SolidWorks, Autodesk Products vs. FreeCAD, Blender
Cost of development - time and money.
These are new frontiers , and the laws and practices of communities are still wide open to say what constitutes an open-source peice of hardware, much less for Sexual purposes
So we could suggest an early working draft of key practices for making sure your can be considered truly open ideas are open for the world.
First and easiest and most obvious is the need to mk
Here at Comingle, we come from technological, media, materials, and philosophical backgrounds, but are relatively new to the world of sex toys.