[OpenDesign] question on the definition scope

Wed Nov 7 12:01:43 UTC 2012

Dear list,

TL;DR: Is the definition meant to address the different fields of
design, or is it only focussed on the production of physical objects and
the technolegal infrastructure required for it, therefore excluding
other areas and practices such as graphic design?

Long: Hello everyone, I've been involved in free culture related
projects for more than a decade (Puredyne,[^1] make art,[^2]
FLOSS+Art,[^3] a.o.) currently researching the impact of free and open
source software on art/design/music/writing practices as part of a PhD
at Goldsmiths, University of London.[^4]

The reason for this mail is my current role as advisor for a new BA
curriculum at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam, NL. One
component of the curriculum is on open design.  One question that we are
asking ourselves is the actual scope of open design. It seems to me
that, while the effort of your project mentions several areas of
design,[^5] the open design community, as a whole, still feels very
close to the open hardware and 3D printing scenes. In that sense, a
definition would be, indeed, very much welcome.

However as we are drafting the curriculum at the moment, we would very
much like to align our effort with yours to avoid adding more noise and
reinvent the wheel (possibly 3D printing it eventually). So I would be
very grateful if you could tell me if this has already been
discussed/agreed or if the scope of the definition is still being
debated. I am also wondering if next to the github repos, there has been
any draft of the definition produced yet.

This is quite crucial for us as we need to address open design from
several angle in this educational context. For instance, one thing that
comes to my mind when associating open design in the context of graphic
design is the effort from one of our graduate student at the Piet Zwart
Institute, Emanuele Bonetti, who researched collaborative graphic design
processes borrowing ideas from different software development
practices.[^6] Another example would be the work of Máirín Duffy, at Red
Hat, who has been busy with the role, methodologies, and platforms
necessary for graphic designers to contribute to FLOSS projects.[^7]

To sum up, any hints on how you are approaching this issue would be very
helpful to us! I did find an issue on github that asks the same question,
but there was no follow-up.[^8]

(Additionally, I am also curious about which licenses you might be
eventually suggesting for open design, more precisely if you intend to
point to the OKFN's in-house OKD or if you will also integrate other
efforts such as the defition for free culture works/licenses)

Thanks!

Best,
a.
--
http://su.kuri.mu

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puredyne

[^2]: http://makeart.goto10.org

[^3]: http://people.makeart.goto10.org/

[^4]: http://su.kuri.mu/2011/my-lawyer-is-an-artist/

[^5]: http://okfestival.org/open-design

[^6]: http://p2pdesignstrategies.parcodiyellowstone.it/

[^7]: http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/contributing-to-free-open-source-software-as-a-designer/
[^8]: https://github.com/OpenDesign-WorkingGroup/Open-Design-Definition/issues/12