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Open Sourcing Innovation 93

Posted by michael from the dream-big dept.
Super_Z writes "Reading an old issue of The Economist, I came over this - whynot.net - a forum for ideas - effectively open sourcing innovation. Doing so, these ideas can hopefully be adapted faster and on a broad basis. Now if I can only get someone to take up and produce my radarguided laser mosquito trap."
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Open Sourcing Innovation More

Open Sourcing Innovation

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  • Half Bakery (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eupheric ( 618980 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:21AM (#8896832)
    I prefer the Half Bakery [halfbakery.com]. All the innovation, half the feasibility!

  • What? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Doomrat ( 615771 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:22AM (#8896840) Homepage
    I'm guessing the the "inspiration" for this project involved a random selection from a hat full of buzzwords. I'm getting fed up with people getting credit for adapting a paradigm such as open source and applying it to something you wouldn't normally associate it with. Just once I'd like to see a project such as this backed by examples of successful output.

  • I thought of that first!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nevek ( 196925 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:22AM (#8896843) Homepage
    Now if I can only get someone to take up and produce my radarguided laser mosquito trap.

    That was my idea, it came to me right after the Hamburger Earmuffs!!

    The only problem with a radarguided laser mosquito trap is that it will also fry whoever is being bitten by a mosquito at the time,

    well thats not always a bad thing!
    • Hamburger Earmuffs? Too bad mine will be out on the market while you're still grappling with the pickle matrix.
    • Hah! It was actually me that was there first.

      The sonic-queued, solar-powered, multi-homed, focusing mosquito, wasp, bee and fly vapouriser was the creation of a lazy afternoon many decades ago.

      One day I'll actually get around to building it; but only after my ......

      ....nope, you're not ready for that just yet.

    • Hamburger muffs. Hmmm. Could do wonders in the realm of foreplay. Wouldn't have to worry about your girl accidentally biting your ear too hard, and it might actually give you incentive to let the foreplay go on longer than normal (which I'm sure many women would like). You could tell her, "you're not getting any until you've eaten all of my, errr, all of the meat...." However, this would be terribly detrimental to those of us with vegetarian girlfriends.

      Thank god for Morningstar!

  • Cf: GlobalIdeasBank.org (Score:5, Informative)

    by ivi ( 126837 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:23AM (#8896845)
    The Global Ideas Bank has been around for quite a while (in Internet time ;-)

    There are several other, similar sites as well.

    Is there a portal to such sites... yet? :-)
    • Thanks for mentioning this. However the aim of the global ideas bank is 'soft' inventions, things that'll (hopefully!) improve society rather than patentable processes. It would be great to have a 'generous thought' portal to concentrate both types of thought.
    • The Global Ideas Bank [globalideasbank.org] differs from the other ideas websites (HalfbAkery, ShouldExist, LazyWeb, Premises Premises etc) because it focuses on Social Inventions which are new, non-product, (usually) non-gadget/techie ideas to improve society. It's just had a massive overhaul, so do check it out and let me know any thoughts.

  • Why not.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by paragon_au ( 730772 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:23AM (#8896851)
    1. Goto whynot.com
    2. Steal idea
    3. ???
    4. Profit!

  • Spying? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Uber Banker ( 655221 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:25AM (#8896859)
    A nice community idea. The site seems /.ed so I can't check... but what prevents someone/some company with low moral standards heading over there, getting ideas and patenting them/slightly changing them and pretending they came out of the R+D department?

    Good idea, but I am cautious.

    • Re:Spying? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rzei ( 622725 )
      Wouldn't the board hold then prior art? Of course one can get inspiration from anywhere, but if a similiar patent is filed after it's been on the board, I guess the patent is pretty meaningless.
    • The philosophy behind many of these "idea sites" is to make good ideas/products public so that do-gooders can realize them. If a corporate pirate steals an idea from such a site, it is only half of a crime. This is because, although they took the idea without permission, the product is eventually created - thereby achieving what the board sought in the first place.
    • but what prevents someone/some company with low moral standards heading over there, getting ideas and patenting them/slightly changing them and pretending they came out of the R+D department?

      One would think the date on the submittions would be a big $$ka-ching$$ for the inventor when it came to trial.
    • We need a way to patent the ideas or protect our ideas from being patented.

      Otherwise a site like that is useless. Currently it costs too much money to patent anything, so only the rich CEO can afford it.

  • whynot.net? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Repugnant_Shit ( 263651 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:25AM (#8896860)
    Because the site is down!

    Or...Because using .NET is embracing the Beast!
  • Did anyone else read the "open sourcing innovation" as "outsourcing innovation"?

    • Re:open sourcing (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No.

      You obviously can't read. You're fired. A man named Imrhod in East India will be taking up your job as of Monday (tomorrow) morning.

  • Why not? (Score:5, Funny)

    by nukey56 ( 455639 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:32AM (#8896896)
    Slashdotted before 20 comments.. it must have been overwhelmed by free thought. Crashed by will power, be it.

  • Houston, we have a problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:32AM (#8896898) Homepage
    Doing so, these ideas can hopefully be adapted faster and on a broad basis. Now if I can only get... ...a better server, people would flock by the millions!

  • Ideas are easy, deeds are difficult (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:33AM (#8896900)
    Which is why "intellectual property" is such a bullshit concept.

    Anyone can have good ideas, it's actually putting it into practice which is the difficult bit. Intellectual property implies that you can have an idea, patent it and then charge anyone who actually wants to put it into use. You should have to produce a *working* prototype for anything you want a patent on.

    • So what _original_ ideas have you come up with then?

    • Re:Ideas are easy, deeds are difficult (Score:4, Informative)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:24AM (#8897146) Journal
      Anyone can have good ideas, it's actually putting it into practice which is the difficult bit. Intellectual property implies that you can have an idea, patent it and then charge anyone who actually wants to put it into use. You should have to produce a *working* prototype for anything you want a patent on.

      I don't know where you get "implies", but in fact you can't say, "Hey, I thought of a radar guided laser mosquito trap!" and patent it. An implementation is necessary. (If the patent officials do their job properly, which the frequently don't, but that has nothing to do with the validity of the concept.)

      Except for the emphasis on working prototypes, the current system is exactly what you want.

      • I don't know where you get "implies", but in fact you can't say, "Hey, I thought of a radar guided laser mosquito trap!" and patent it. An implementation is necessary.

        Actually, incorrect you do not need a working example; except in certain special cases- IRC the patent office only accept perpetual motion machines patents if accompanied by a working model :-).

        A patent is an *idea* that is being patented. It's your own problem if your idea doesn't actually work.

      • If all you do is write software you might not agree, but when you are trying to invent something, what goes down on paper is what is plausible, what might or should work and frankly that's often just bullshit which skims over the real showstopping implementation problems.

        The need for a real working prototype which actually demonstrates that it can target and zap mosquitos successfully with a real laser would force inventors to actually go through the process of solving the many and real problems.

        It would

    • Re:Ideas are easy, deeds are difficult (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:53AM (#8897294) Homepage Journal
      Both ideas and implementation are difficult and important phases of invention. The ideas phase can often be done by people without money; the implementation usually requires investment. The goal of patents is to encourage everybody, not just those with money, to participate in the ideas phase, and provide a way for them to synch up with those in the implementation phase. By giving a patent to a person with an idea, those with money can't just take the idea; legally, they have to buy it.

      (You do, of course, have to have the idea fully worked out before it's a saleable item; it's only the rarest ideas which can be considered truly novel without a detailed plan for implementation. The border between novel and not-novel is badly defined and very ugly.)

      The same idea applies to copyright. I, as an author, can write a book, but it takes a publisher to actually make money with it, since it takes a lot of money to get a book published (editing, printing, distribution, advertising, and the monetary risk of the fact that all those things happen up front.) The author owns the copyright and sells it (or leases it) to the publisher in exchange for a cut of the sales of the physical books.

      The law protects the copyright owner as owning property. Although it isn't like real property in every respect, it shares many common features: the right to sell it, the limitation on who may use it, the ability to sue if ownership is violated.

      Such is the concept, at least. In practice, when the law gets involved, money talks. One can certainly quibble with the implementation, even to the point of declaring the flaws in implementation more important that the benefits, but I don't think the concept itself merits being called "bullshit".

      • it takes a lot of money to get a book published (editing, printing, distribution, advertising, and the monetary risk of the fact that all those things happen up front.)

        Not to the extent anymore. CafePress Self Publish [cafepress.com] handles printing and online distribution, and you can scale advertising up gradually: a K5 ad here, a Google ad there, etc.

        Although [copyright] isn't like real property in every respect, it shares many common features: the right to sell it, the limitation on who may use it, the ability

        • That's quite an insightful observation: I've never entirely understood why copyright is a property whose rights expire.

          It's been suggested that the reason is that intellectual property isn't a right, but rather that ideas (not being physical objects) are community property and that the government establishes the fiction of property rights with a limited term to encourage people to innovate.

          If so, IP rights are their own thing, and not bound by any other understanding of property. But there are important
          • You can consider that rights ultimately are only really given you by governments.

            It's not that ideas are public property- it's that the government wants to encourage the cross fertilisation you get when ideas aren't hidden in the middle of companies and corporations as 'trade secrets'.

            So the government invents patents, which protect the idea for a few years (typically 15), but then expire, allowing the idea to be improved upon by others (independent of how bloody minded or wrong headed or just unable to

      • The ideas phase can often be done by people without money;

        You mean to say the ideas phase can often be done by people without money, without perseverance, and without the necessary skills.

        Yep, this is exactely what we need more of. We need more ideas from poor lazy unskilled people. Imagination is such a rare commodity.

    • Ideas are easy, deeds are difficult Which is why "intellectual property" is such a bullshit concept.

      No. Not all ideas are easy.
      Tell me, could you design a phased-array slotted waveguide radar antennta?

      I thought not.

      Could you take a ruler, measure one, make a few drawings and start selling your own? Probably.

      "Intellectual property" is what makes sure that guy who can actually design the antenna gets paid.
      Without patents, copyright, etc there's a lot less financial incentive for a company to do
  • radarguided laser mosquito trap? Oh thats nothing. My mosquito/fly trap: use the radar to detect the sector in which movement occurs, turn IR cameras in that direction and use them to get the exact position of the fly/mosquito. Now the biggest difference: I'd use low caliber, high RPM, pneumatic-powered Gatling gun. Sure it's not as cool as using lasers, but still provides a good challenge for precise calculations and movement prediction. Bullets could be easily molten and recycled.

  • Ideas are cheap (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... .com minus punct> on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:39AM (#8896936) Journal
    but turning them into reality is brutally hard work.

    Honestly: one lunch with some intelligent company and a little wine can produce enough ideas for five years' work. No big deal.

  • Radar-guided laser mosquito trap? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 18, 2004 @10:41AM (#8896950)
    There's no such thing as radar-guided laser mosquitos silly.
  • They say it as if Open Source innovation did not exist before. Just cause Debian is a geezer nowadays doesn't mean it isn't dash cunning and clever of the Linux community

  • ShouldExist (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nomihn0 ( 739701 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:01AM (#8897051)
    Should Exist [shouldexist.org] has a very strong little commmunity centered on actually carrying out the ideas that they come up with. I seriously suggest checking them out.

  • The Ultimate Secturity System (Score:3, Funny)

    by AvoidTheNoid ( 772246 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:09AM (#8897082)
    This site has the ultimate security system

    It crashes whenever somebody goes to it...nobody can steal their ideas.

  • should exist? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ramses0 ( 63476 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:10AM (#8897088)
    See also http://shouldexist.org, for ideas that (well), should exist. :^)

    Based on scoop (the same engine that runs Kuro5hin), and been running for a few years now. There's some neat stuff within there.

    --Robert

  • All I ask for... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ccarr.com ( 262540 ) <chris_carrNO@SPAMslashdot.ccarr.com> on Sunday April 18, 2004 @11:38AM (#8897219) Homepage
    ...is bats with frick'n lasers strapped to their heads!
  • For the idea to work in everyones favor I think, that we would need the government to restructure the ground rules for business such that companies found it advantageous to reward people for generating open source innovations. Otherwise its a self f*&k fest.


  • These ideas must be free of patents or patented in such a way that anyone can use these ideas in any product.

    Then I will support the project.

  • It Helps To Get Free Assistance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by osewa77 ( 603622 ) <naijasms@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday April 18, 2004 @01:37PM (#8897939) Homepage
    For developers/inventors who would like to try to concieve and develop a product that requires the contribution of a large number of people, who do not have the support or money of large corporations, Open Source could well be the right way. The core of any product, is the *idea* that differentiates it.
    says me, seun [afriguru.com]

  • SlipHead.com (Score:2, Informative)

    by Telluride ( 720291 )
    There is another great Idea Board [sliphead.com] called SlipHead Design [sliphead.com].

    They have some pretty cool ideas on there and really seem to have the 'right feel' of what a good idea board should encompass.
  • ...Or, I should say the over-patenting disease we're experiencing? A forum where everybody could braindump their ideas and discuss them in a public space (what if a license or agreement stated all ideas posted are now public domain). When someeone attempts to patent the idea, this space could be pointed to as being the idea's origin, leaving the patent attempter in a dubious position?

    = 9J =

  • I approached these guys ages ago about their domain - intending to publish information about why Microsoft's .NET was a bad idea (mostly just the passport side of things which is now cactus anyway). It's good to see a domain I wanted put to good use, rather than a handful of others which are still placeholders or want $$lots which they'll never get.

  • Reading an old issue of The Economist, I came over this ...


    Wow, doesn't take much to turn you on, does it? Try something with a centrefold.

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