RepRap Research Foundation Metamorphosis
I’m happy to announce some big changes that are happening with the RepRap Research Foundation and my involvement with the RepRap project in general. For those of you that wish to skip the lengthy blog post on what is happening, I’ll spill the beans now: the RepRap Research Foundation is transitioning from a parts clearinghouse to a primarily research oriented foundation. This change is a long time coming, and I feel it positions the Foundation more properly within the RepRap ecosystem, not to mention staying true to the name of the Foundation itself.
A few weeks ago, I circulated an email to the RRRF Board of Directors informing them about my involvement as a Founder of MakerBot Industries and what that means for the RRRF. We then had a meeting and we unanimously agreed that the RRRF should transition to a primarily research oriented foundation and that it is okay for me to continue as a volunteer researcher and director.
So, in practical terms, what does this mean? There are a few major changes that will happen in the way that the RRRF operates:
1. The RRRF will no longer supply common items (steppers, cables, etc) in the online store. We will continue to sell all the various items we have in stock in the store until they run out, but they will not be re-stocked.
2. The RRRF will continue to operate the online store, but it will be filled with extra prototypes for interested researchers. When those prototypes sell out, they will not be re-stocked. If there is enough interest, then hopefully a company such as MakerBot, Bits From Bytes, or even *YOUR* company will pick it up and manufacture it in large quantities.
3. The RRRF will institute a program to make it easier for researchers to have prototypes make for free. Over the past couple of years, the RRRF has developed a good amount of knowledge and contacts that allow us to make prototypes of many different objects quickly and cheaply. We want to give the RepRap community at large access to that in hopes of accelerating development of the technology. More details of this program coming soon.
Essentially, the RRRF will no longer be worrying about the commercial application of the technology it develops. The goal is to rapidly develop prototypes, release them to the general public and then move on to whatever the next cutting edge project is. We’ll let the commercial companies worry about which boards to produce commercially. No longer will the RRRF have to worry about not releasing a new board because it bogged down with 100 kits of the old version.
Of course, we’ll continue releasing all of our research to the public completely free under the GPL or similar license.
The net result is a separation of business and research which will hopefully push the technology forward faster and guarantee all of us better access to cooler things.
Cheers,
Zach ‘Hoeken’ Smith
Director, RepRap Research Foundation
Filed under: Foundation News
This is horrible news. If it were not for the RRRF selling everything from one store I would have never attempted this project. I also felt very comfortable buying all my products through the foundations knowing that whatever profits were made would be returned to the foundation for research purposes. I sure hope this does not hurt the progress of the RepRap project.
Aww. That makes me feel bad. For me, this is wonderful news! I’ve poured my heart and soul into the foundation and its been awesome. Your post implies that you’d rather support the entity that is the foundation rather than the person behind the foundation (me!) I have to make a living somehow, and if I can make that living making and selling open source 3D printers don’t you think that it will benefit the community more than if I worked on it as a side project and did something like web development during the day?
If you’re worried about this negatively impacting RepRap, you’re looking at this the wrong way. MakerBot, the RRRF, and the RepRap project all share many, many common goals and will work together to achieve them. For example, we all want simple, cheap 3D printing. We also want powerful, cheap, easy electronics. We all want reliable, simple extrusion heads. We all want things to be as open as possible so that any and all can participate. Sure, we may approach things slightly differently, but we’re all in this together.
Now, this change will allow the technology to develop at a much faster pace. Consider this situation: the RRRF which we all dearly love orders and builds 100 stepper motor driver v1.1 kits. Simultaneously, it is developing the v1.2 stepper motor driver. If it has 50 kits of the v1.1 left and the v1.2 board is ready to release, there is a major problem: If it releases the v1.2 and people stop buying the v1.1 it stands to lose money. Therefore, the RRRF delays release of the v1.2 until the v1.1 is sold out. In the meantime, during the transition it becomes hard to get ahold of stepper kits in general. On the flip side, if the RRRF releases both and does run out of money, it cannot fund further research. If the RRRF both sells kits, as well as develops new kits then there are serious financial problems that get in the way of rapid development.
However, with the new RRRF it doesn’t have any commercial worries to slow down development: it makes a new prototype, releases the prototype to the community. The prototype only has a limited run and is therefore a much smaller capital investment. Most likely the prototype will sell out before the next version is in. Even if it doesn’t, the fact that it is a small investment means that the potential loss is much smaller. Even non-profits have to worry about this stuff (actually, they *especially* have to worry about this stuff, because money is much harder to come by)
Finally, companies like MakerBot are the ones that package up the tried and true designs and make them easy to purchase and build. One of the main purposes of MakerBot is to provide a one-stop-shop where you can get all the parts needed to build a RepRap machine. Does it make sense for a non-profit to sell ATX power supplies? Definitely not. But it does for a store like MakerBot whose sole purpose is to make it easy to build open source 3D printers.
There are a million reasons why this is a good thing, and I’m frankly a bit saddened to see this reaction. Have I still not earned the trust of the community after two years of nearly full-time volunteer work to build the RRRF? And trust me, the RRRF was built entirely by me. I’ve filled nearly every single order myself, ordered every part, build nearly every single kit. It was loads of work and I did it because I love the RepRap project and I love the concept of open source hardware and the digital fabrication revolution.
Cheers,
Zach
This is ace! Great work! I love the name MakerBot industries, neat design, I like that you’ve used the generation 2 electronics. Keep up doing what you do its inspiring! Open Source hardware rocks!
I do support you and appreciate what you have done. I guess what makes me sad is that you won’t be supplying general parts from the rrrf store anymore. I would like to see that you continue to sell those products, as well as do research for the rrrf. I would not even mind if the rrrf still paid you for the work that you do for it.
My thought is that MakerBot could be for whole kits only and not individual parts. This to me would be enough separation that I would not see any conflict of interest.
Don’t be sad. It does not really bother me all that much. I was probably just in a bit of a mood yesterday when I started ranting. Your great and I wish you the best. Everyone needs to make a living.