[time-nuts] Releasing sources (was Re: Brooks Shera)

[Javier Serrano]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 9:24 PM, Lester Veenstra <lester at veenstras.com> wrote:

> Start a discussion group associated with the publishing, possibly without
> direct contact information on the author.

There is something seriously wrong if you cannot publish and share
ideas without being swamped with support requests, to the point of
having to do it anonymously. If a project is very successful, and
support requests become a serious issue to the original developer,
chances are it can be commercialized. There are many examples of Open
Source Hardware projects with commercial support [1]. A high-precision
Open Source GPSDO would certainly qualify. Sharing and discussing is
great while it stays at a level which allows you to have fun. It is
becomes a serious amount of work, and if users see a value in the
support, they should be willing to pay for it. I think paid labor
makes Open Source Hardware more scalable and sustainable.

Cheers,

Javier

[1] This is e.g. a board we designed at CERN, which is commercialized
by three companies (that we know of):
http://www.ohwr.org/projects/spec/wiki