Samenvatting

Open source can be a key ingredient for the distribution of technology and has proven successful in software. The idea has also gained interest in the field of hardware over the last two decades; yet its development appears slow. Not only vary tooling, raw materials, standard parts, and manufacturing expertise widely across geographical locations. Projects tend to fork rather than to converge, leading to partial and local optimisations. Recent research with fab labs and makers therefore studies communities, business models, and business life cycles, rather than just technology. Such an approach increases the utility of open-source hardware as intermediary technology.