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FreeEntTec | 14 Jul 22:45
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Open Source Water bike

QUESTIONS FOR GIUSEPPE:

Hey guys,

I would do a metaphor of boat building and inventing to musical  performance. 
Sometimes yopu have a symphony. Lots of differing individuals with  varying 
degrees of talent, and fur sure differing specialties. If you propose an  open 
source, how would you treat musicians with seniority? Now for the "64.00  
question": What about virtuosos? Who would conduct the symphony? 

There are other parallels; What about a sports team. Perhaps there are only  
a given number of openings on the team...? Who would coach? who would play 
what  position?

More questions later. Next subject: intellectual property

jake

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Giuseppe Carignani | 15 Jul 17:14

Re: Open Source Water bike

Hi Jake and everybody
now Jake proposes a few difficult questions about the Open Waterbike
Project, and more to come. I'll try and give a few simple answers...
Music... well I'm not much of a musician, but what the Open Waterbike
community could resemble is not an orchestra but possibly a jazz group
gathered for a jam session. To play together they need some kind of
structure, a 'standard' around which they co-create the music.
What is necessary for the Open Waterbike is somehow such a structure,
and the group should just agree about it. After that, no conductor is
needed, even if this or that musician can take the lead form time to
time, and virtuoso performance is not only possible, but even enhanced
by the collective.
In the case of the Open Waterbike the structure is the architectural
model, and what the community should do is to agree about the
architecture.
How to do that I don't know exactly, but I have a startup proposal
that you can find here: http://www.openwaterbike.com/architecture
What I would like to do now is to start this collective building of
the architecture.
A partial answer to Jake's question about the conductor: while we
don't really need a designer of the Open Waterbike, we need and
architect, that is a special kind of designer who defines the
architecture.
For that I propose the idea of a Collective Architect, please find it
at http://www.openwaterbike.com/architecture/the-architectural-design-group
. I'd like to have in this group some of the contributors of this
list, whose expertise I have in high esteem.The technical
qualification of the group is crucial to the project, we just need a
small group, but with the right people in it... just let me know if
you can lend a hand!
(Continue reading)

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Bob Stuart | 15 Jul 19:26
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Re: Open Source Water bike

I wonder if you might have more success by trying to limit the number  
of actively developed designs from hundreds to a dozen instead of  
just one.  There are days when I want the simplest, lightest boat,  
and others when I want to haul my own weight in cargo though heavy  
weather.  Another option would be to just create an arbitrary "one- 
design" class for racing, and write the specs to encourage refinement  
of the components by various manufacturers.  If your races go for a  
day or so, the power levels will be more suitable for less athletic  
people out for an afternoon.

b

On 15-Jul-08, at 9:14 AM, Giuseppe Carignani wrote:

> Hi Jake and everybody
> now Jake proposes a few difficult questions about the Open Waterbike
> Project, and more to come. I'll try and give a few simple answers...
> Music... well I'm not much of a musician, but what the Open Waterbike
> community could resemble is not an orchestra but possibly a jazz group
> gathered for a jam session. To play together they need some kind of
> structure, a 'standard' around which they co-create the music.
> What is necessary for the Open Waterbike is somehow such a structure,
> and the group should just agree about it. After that, no conductor is
> needed, even if this or that musician can take the lead form time to
> time, and virtuoso performance is not only possible, but even enhanced
> by the collective.
> In the case of the Open Waterbike the structure is the architectural
> model, and what the community should do is to agree about the
> architecture.
> How to do that I don't know exactly, but I have a startup proposal
(Continue reading)

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Giuseppe Carignani | 16 Jul 15:10

Re: Open Source Water bike

I agree with you, Bob.
Indeed, 'the Open Waterbike Project aims at creating a family of
high-performance human-powered watercrafts, sharing the same
architecture' ( http://www.openwaterbike.com/architecture )
However, we cannot define the different 'versions'  up front, we
expect them to emerge from the community...
What's important in my view is that every 'design' can reuse some of
the Open Waterbike components; this is what usually happens, since
nobody develops a product from scratch. So, the Open Waterbike could
also be seen as a platform for developing waterbikes from existing
components. You may for example to use an existing drive unit or just
a propeller, and concentrate instead on the special needs of your own
waterbike. That's exactly how my own waterbike was developed, but
sourcing and adapting the outsourced parts required a lot of effort
and time, that could have been avoided in Open Waterbike components
has existed...
Giuseppe

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Bob Stuart <bobstuart@...> wrote:
> I wonder if you might have more success by trying to limit the number of
> actively developed designs from hundreds to a dozen instead of just one.
>  There are days when I want the simplest, lightest boat, and others when I
> want to haul my own weight in cargo though heavy weather.  Another option
> would be to just create an arbitrary "one-design" class for racing, and
> write the specs to encourage refinement of the components by various
> manufacturers.  If your races go for a day or so, the power levels will be
> more suitable for less athletic people out for an afternoon.
>
> b
>
(Continue reading)

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Bob Stuart | 16 Jul 22:52
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Re: Open Source Water bike

Perhaps you could foster more co-operation between manufacturers by  
brokering deals through your forum.  When I started, my initial  
customer wanted something like the Sea Cycle drive he had adapted,  
but shorter.  I changed as many details as I could, so as not to  
infringe on the design, but later changed my bottom end to a more  
similar arrangement.   If the Sea Cycle folks had been soliciting co- 
operation, I'd have been more inclined to make a unit that could have  
been retro-fitted to their boat without modification.  There may be  
room for some standardization of interfaces, as has been so  
successful in computing.
Still, I'm haunted by an early computer book, which had a dozen  
graphic symbols used for rating products.  One was a rather  
unappealing art-nouveau cartoon of a group of workmen marching in  
step.  Another was of the same guys fighting.  These represented,  
respectively, "Conforms to Industry Standards" and "Does Not Conform  
to Industry Standards."
Building codes have almost eliminated the worst common errors, but  
sometimes mandated new ones, and always hampered the best innovators.

best,
Bob Stuart

On 16-Jul-08, at 7:10 AM, Giuseppe Carignani wrote:

> I agree with you, Bob.
> Indeed, 'the Open Waterbike Project aims at creating a family of
> high-performance human-powered watercrafts, sharing the same
> architecture' ( http://www.openwaterbike.com/architecture )
> However, we cannot define the different 'versions'  up front, we
> expect them to emerge from the community...
(Continue reading)

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Gmane