Free and open hardware: a critical and thematic analysis of free and open hardware communities RepRap and Arduino

This thesis explores the issue of capitalist exploitation of digital media where free time and creativity are fundamental elements in the production of digital goods. The thesis focuses in particular on free open source hardware communities in which hackers give up a considerable amount of free or leisure time and creativity to produce open technology. Hardware hacking represents relatively new model designing and assembling of hardware based on commons-based peer production (CBPP). In this research, I examine how free time and creativity can be exploited in open source communities, with corporations benefiting from community wealth. I investigate how free or leisure time becomes a regime of “hyper-exploitation” from which capital is increasingly accumulated. It is hyper-exploitation precisely because, whereas workers receive wages in return to their labour, producers in CBPP are unpaid (Ritzer, 2014).  

I focus on two Free Open Source Hardware (FOSHW) projects: RepRap and Arduino, as example cases in this thesis. Discussions on RepRap and Arduino mailing lists and the data from interviews are analysed. I explore how the free time and creativity of volunteers are exploited in FOSHW communities and how hackers react to capitalist exploitation. This thesis shows that hackers have differing aims and motivations in RepRap and Arduino communities. The discussions on the issue of open source, the issue of self-replicating, the issue of customisation, fun in the RepRap community and the issue of Arduino clones all provide a basis for analysing the logic of hyper-exploitation. Thjs in turn is based on the commercialisation of open hardware goods and the exploitation of voluntary labour which plays a key role in the production and distribution of software and design.  

As a basis for further discussion, I introduce a set of key concepts that play an important role in the analysis of capitalist exploitation in Free Open Source Hardware (FOSHW) communities. These concepts include free time, creativity, capitalist exploitation, democracy, hacker, open source communities, collaboration, work, free labour and fun. I also discuss how the line between free time and work time is blurred Page 4   and the production of open source software and design has come to be seen as part of a free time activity. This thesis shows that free time and activity of volunteers in open source communities are exploited by technology companies and the term “fun” may disguise capitalist exploitation, in which the line between leisure time and work time is not clear. Creative activities taking place in free time create value that is appropriated by companies (see Kostakis and Bauwens, 2014). Even though hackers have fun when developing software and design, the efforts and creativity of hackers can be viewed as productive labour and therefore turn into capital in the market. The collaborative relationship between the firms and open source communities may enable capitalists to make a profit from peer production. I will discuss this issue in more detail in the thesis. The story of MakerBot in Chapter 5 and the issue of Arduino trademark in Chapter 6 provide us with important information enabling us to discuss in depth the hyper-exploitation of voluntary labour. I will scrutinise the concept of hyper-exploitation in Chapter 2.  

Open source communities, on the one hand, allow humans to participate in the production of open technology. This can be also understood as the democratisation of production. Voluntary labour, on the other hand, may be appropriated by firms. In this thesis, I explore this contradiction in FOSHW communities.  

In this research, I undertake interviews and collect data from the RepRap and Arduino mailing lists. I apply corpus text analysis and thematic analysis to the mailing lists and interview data. Two different empirical cases are used in the research. Firstly, Replicating Rapid Prototyper (RepRap) has been chosen in relation to the production and manufacturing of free-open-source 3D printers. RepRap is known as a self-replicating machine that produces most of its own components. Secondly, Arduino, itself a low-power open-source single-board computer has been selected as an empirical case.