Can Open Source Save the World?

What’s the Latest Development?

An open source hardware program is giving individuals and communities information on how to create their own simple tools so they can living more sustainably. The program, Open Source Ecology, was founded by nuclear fusion expert Marcin Jakubowski after lamenting that his PhD had left him with few practical skills. After moving to a farm in Missouri and fixing one too many broken tractors, he published 3D designs, schematics, how-to videos and budgets for the construction of 50 different industrial machines using an online wiki.

What’s the Big Idea?

The open source principle, that tools for improving the quality of life should be available to everyone and that everyone should have a say in improving them, began in the world of software. Today, there are more and more experiments with open source hardware. Jakubowki’s goal is to “create an open society, where everybody’s needs are met, and where everybody has access to information, material productivity, and just governance systems—such that human creativity is unleashed, for all people.”

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