We can say that these days the first mass product completely open source has been distributed. Therefore, this is the first example of a real Open Design, not tied to individual experiments or niche markets (albeit very important): the first example of how open source philosophy can be adopted not only in areas different from programming and production of contents, but also in a production of physical goods, rival goods.
I am talking about the Openmoko organization, a project aimed at the design of a smartphone completely open source, first for its software, and now also for its hardware and design.

We can say that this is the first, true, open source mass product design, as the previous examples have not pursued completely the Open Source philosophy, or because they have had limited results, or, lastly, because the context was not ready for actions of this type.

Thinkcycle, which is the first and most developed example (at least so far), was an experiment aimed at niche markets, and for this reason should deserve even more importance because it was aimed at helping disadvantaged contexts, but still limited in the results and in influence on the world of design as too ahead of the spread of Open Source awareness in society.
The initiative Ronen Kadushin, although worthy, represents only a solitary experiment without broad appeal and development.
Martí Guixé’s proposal takes the Open Source as a metaphor and try to adopt some of its collateral features, in the sense that look for certain effects of the open source that can apply to products too, but in substance it is not open source.

The Openmoko initiative (in its first incarnation, Neo1973, produced by FIC) is so important because the adoption of the Open Source philosophy is not an experiment but a real initiative. We then passed the stage of inspiration and experimentation for Open Design, to a stage where it is put into practice. Of course, experimentation is not over and should be pursued further, but now we are talking about a product that the general public will see in stores and that is in competition with the most expected product of the moment, the Apple iPhone. And this referring to the freedom that this choice of opening may give the user, just like the philosophy of the Free Software:

If you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Our first key unlocked the software, unleashing the community to recraft the code. Now, we free the case and share the keys to Industrial Design. Developers who want to re-craft the case are set free.

It is by no coincidence that an advanced version can be bought, bearing all that is needed to open and edit the phone, enabling his hacking in order to customize and learning from it at the same time.

The distribution of the design files, which took place recently, is therefore a logical consequence; the files (IGES, STEP, ProE), were published under license Creative Commons ShareAlike at this address: http://downloads.openmoko.org/CAD/

The fact that a mobile phone of new generation (a smartphone) is the first true open source product, makes the event even more important. Why? Because mobile phones represent a huge potential for the development of community-based collaborative services. A tool that will enable us in the future to exploit, enhance and more easily spread the collective intelligence, because it has the ability to further break down barriers of the service, as many more people have access to mobile phones and feel more comfortable with them than with computers and the World Wide Web.

Therefore, with an Open P2P design methodology we could design with/for a community, mobiler phones, their software and their services, according to their specific needs. We are then able to co-design with a community their collaborative services and the tools that allow their deployment, even for small contexts.

via | core77