Máirín Duffy

I believe quite strongly in open source design's possibility, having done a lot of stupid things in defense of it. Perhaps my definition of 'open source' and 'design' is different.

The question isn't really open vs not-open though, it's how open - isn't it? As Chris and Burney have indicated, even within the walls of a design firm there is a spectrum of openness. Maybe to count as 'open source' for the purposes of discussion here, if there is a dichotomy, is 'open as most open source code projects are' (so just within an organization doesn't count.)

Do you mean 'open source' in terms of the process followed, or the literal license of the assets produced? (You can even go crazy like me and consider the availability of the toolchain involved, e.g. are free open source tools used? But I'm crazy :) ) Anyway, both process and license are important. For example, Sita Sings the Blues is the work of a single artist, but it's openly-licensed. But wait a minute. Nina Paley didn't write or sing those Annette Hanshaw songs (and actually is in a tight spot right now because of some copyright nonsense) - nor did she write the the Ramayana - so does that really qualify as a solo project? It's more towards the 'solo' end of the spectrum too, but... (Did Walt Disney write Snow White or any of the Brothers Grim Tales he borrowed? But now I'm stealing a classic Lessig argument...) As far as I know she didn't follow an open process, either, since she worked alone. (I could be wrong though.)

Is a piece of software not a design? There are some pretty great experiences in open source software, some heavily corporately sponsored some not, where the design/implementation took place in the open. Firefox is probably a good example, I think Inkscape is another; I'm sure you can think of others. But this is the obvious answer to your question.

If not software, what about a 3D movie? Do these count:
http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/
http://www.elephantsdream.org/
http://durian.blender.org/

The Durian project is not yet complete yet. Yet if you check out their site, you can see them blogging about their design process and having open calls for participation. Yes, open calls for participation. My friend Chris Webber actually suggested the team have an open 'modeling' sprint, where the Durian team posted a list of models they needed created and scheduled a time and 'place' (online) for folks to come and help out. As you can see, it was a success:

http://durian.blender.org/news/community-modeling-sprint/
http://durian.blender.org/news/modeling-sprint-a-stellar-success/

"Holy smokes, you guys. I came in Saturday afternoon surprised to find that nearly every single item on the wiki with a name next to it and nearly 200 people logged into IRC!"

What an opportunity. A chance to work with seasoned professionals. What I wouldn't give to have had that opportunity - to even have had Blender at my disposal - when I was a high schooler with lots of time and passion! Think about a kid who couldn't (either affordability or other reasons I'm sure you well know) get to art school - what a great way to learn from professionals. Using professional-grade tools that wouldn't cost your family anything...

In contrast to Sita, which was a (mostly) one-woman show with an open license using closed-source tools, the Durian project is a multiple-person core team working collaboratively and physically co-located, using open source tools and releasing their source files and final work under an open license, and occasionally inviting community members to share in the work. And documenting all work via a publicly-accessible blog on a regular basis. So I would consider the Durian project to be towards the opposite end of the 'open design' spectrum from Sita - lots of people, lots of communication, external community involvement, on top of an open license.

I don't have an example to give you for the other possibility here - an open / transparent design process for something that is licensed under a closed / proprietary license. I'm not sure how that really compares in openness to Sita, but I kind of tend to think it's more open.

Don't like movies / don't like these examples? How about http://www.thingiverse.com/ ? They've got folks designing physical objects, sharing the CAD files under open licenses (CC is popular there), and printing them out on open-source 3D printers. Check it out, they have a pingback system where if someone takes another design and improves upon it, it's noted (check this one for example, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2035)

This is a similar model to openclipart.org and openfontlibrary.org... but Thingiverse is physical things! :) Have they created an iPod or iPhone on Thingiverse? No. So maybe not design with a 'D.' Although honestly, i would consider the MakerBot itself to be design with a D, in terms of the cultural movement it's spawned and the fact that it works really well....

Is the iPhone or iPod really so great? I don't have either but even so I still feel secondary effects of its design and existence, so maybe it is great. I know this is an unfair question, but what happened to all the phones people had before they got their iPhones? Landfill? Poisoning some childrens' water in a third-world country? What if all those phone manufacturers actually shared information about the design of their phones and learned from each others mistakes rather than pumping out less-than-useful phone designs (hardware and software) for the past decade or so? I'm sure there were Designers involved in the meanwhile, so why did so many phones 'fail' before the iPhone? There's something about the business of things where good enough is good enough for a long time (not necessarily the individuals' feeling, but the business/company's feeling/actions as a whole), until someone else cares enough to make it better than good enough. Then competition gears up to another level because suddenly there's a reason to (eg Apple).

I think maybe a difference though, if you're not in the business of making money, if you're in it for the Love of it, good enough is not enough either. I think a lot of free / open source software folks are in it for the Love - they just typically aren't Designers. Can that change? Will it make a difference if it does? What happens when open source projects 'compete'? (Chromium?) If you really love something, do you want to design it openly? (I do, I think it increases the chances of awesome ideas making it into the mix. Maybe some people don't agree though and they want to protect it from the outside world.)

Sometimes the hard work of design is making a call on the things that really don't matter in the end. I think open source design's weakness is the amount of hand-wringing that typically happens over these kinds of decisions - suddenly folks' attention gets sucked away from the things that matter into tit-for-tat for whether or not the logo should be blue or green. (Something that Seth Nickell mentioned recently at the GNOME UX Hackfest, see the last paragraph here, although I think the rest of the post is a bit extreme: http://blogs.gnome.org/seth/2010/02/23/i-did-the-worst-design-of-my-life-within-gnome/) So the iUniverse has an advantage in that (I am assuming) those calls can be made and folks moved to more interesting/important decision, perhaps by the organization of the chain of command, or some other mechanism not posisble in open source communities.

How does design work in an open source community? You can't just defend a design call with 'because I said so' or 'because I am a Designer.' That won't fly. 'Because together we agreed I'd be accountable for this part of the project and we gotta move on to work on cooler stuff' is okay, (though paired with a well-reasoned, if not universally-agreed-upon rationale it's even better, eg choice A gives us this pro) and it does fly in an open source community. I think being able to say, 'I'm accountable, let's move on' is necessary both for the open source design to come to fruition and for the community to be healthy. (the 'because i said so' attitude is not healthy, I think: open source community or not!)

I think maybe open source design thrives where there's a solid structure for participation. Like the Durian call for participation for modeling. Or the calls for participation we've had on the Fedora design team. If someone takes some initiative to be a project organizer, to hold the hackfest or to hold the event or to document what needs doing and how it needs to be done (e.g. the Durian needed-models wiki), they build a framework within which it's much easier to get involved. With code maybe it's easier - hey, it compiles, it runs, it does the thing I wanted it to do. But with design, people get afraid that they aren't Designers and they aren't good enough and what they have to say doesn't matter... it's easier to get over that I think if there's some format or structure for them to understand what's should happen. Is the framework itself the design? I don't always think so. Sometimes the framework makes big design assumptions that are definitely a key part of the design, but design being the organic process it is (right?) sometimes the design assumptions of the framework get flipped upside down, and the end result is better for it, and the framework enabled the design just the same.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how the way we communicate in open source projects does NOT create a healthy framework for design. Funnily enough, there's a few projects going on, one which may become a Google Summer of Code project this summer, to try to remedy the situation, that are being designed openly. :)

Maybe an odd question, but - was anything in the pre-industrial world designed? Were those things designed in closed manner? Didn't folks share information and work together on things? I mean, the question sounds quite naive I'm sure, but didn't folks build towns and churches and schools together in cooperation back in the day? The designing and selling of designed things I'm sure goes way back, but was it the design or the materials and cost of production being sold all this time? It was industrialization and mass-production that sort of gave designs substantially more value, wasn't it? I keep thinking of things like particular knitting patterns and quilting patterns handed down over the years and improved upon... heck, even recipes and ways of preparing food... does that count as open source design?

An odd example, but are Mountain bikes an open source design (have you ever read about how they came to be)?

One more thing - paid or unpaid came up in some of the comments and I don't think it matters. If someone is paid, they are just as capable of producing a design the open source way as someone unpaid. Actually, they are probably even more capable as they have the time required to do it right.

In the end, we need more designers in open source. It seems we may need more open source in designers too?

Hope this rambling is useful.

Hi Chris!

Just one quick counter-point - I do see folks talking about the design perspective vs the engineering perspective and which one trumps which. But I think in a lot of cases it's not design or engineering that trumps - it's business. E.g., avoiding the risk of launching a failed product because it's so different.

I think in a lot of cases engineers too put out stuff they'd rather not as well for the sake of business needs/decisions...

~m