Below is the prologue of an opinion piece giving reasons why public institutions should publish more of their hardware designs as Open-Source Hardware (OSHW), along with a link to the draft in pdf format. We also propose a number of ways in which the positive impact of these developments on society could be increased. If you read the draft and have feedback, questions, etc. please contact the authors. Thanks!
Prologue
Imagine a world in which public institutions create a common pool of knowledge and technology which everybody is free to access. A world in which commercial companies build upon that commons to add value and generate revenue, some of which is re-injected into the public sphere to fuel the continuous growth of the commons. Imagine we had a way to make this process very efficient. Just think about the amount of public institutions out there: universities, laboratories, government agencies... In this opinion piece, we argue that with coordination and appropriate support in terms of legal environment and business models, this vision can result in an enormous boost to innovation and welfare. If this sounds compelling to you, read on.
Note: viewing the pdf in the browser does not seem to work with Chrome. It does with Firefox and Safari. Chrome users, while we fix this, please try another browser or simply download the pdf file to your computer and use a separate pdf viewer. Sorry for the inconvenience.