Community created open source hardware: A case study of "eCars - Now!"

Authors

  • Tiina Malinen School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere
  • Teemu Mikkonen School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere
  • Vesa Tienvieri Researcher at the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere
  • Tere Vadén School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i5.3357

Keywords:

open source, open source hardware, community, volunteer, motivations

Abstract

Based on a survey, we describe the demographic and motivational structure of one open source hardware (OSH) community and compare it to open source software (OSS) communities. Taken separately, both the demographics and the motivational structure of the OSH community fall clearly within the typology of OSS communities, but when the two are taken together the OSH community forms a type of its own. We also discuss bottlenecks in OSH development revealed by the survey and subsequent interviews.

Author Biographies

Tiina Malinen, School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere

Researcher at the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland.

Teemu Mikkonen, School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere

Researcher at the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland.

Vesa Tienvieri, Researcher at the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere

Researcher at the School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland.

Tere Vadén, School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere

Senior lecturer in interactive media and adjunct professor in philosophy, University of Tampere, Finland.

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Published

2011-04-17

How to Cite

Malinen, T., Mikkonen, T., Tienvieri, V., & Vadén, T. (2011). Community created open source hardware: A case study of "eCars - Now!". First Monday, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i5.3357

Issue

Section

Articles