Some time ago a discussion emerged in the blogosphere about the question whether 3d printing will make it to the mainstream (take a look at my post about this debate). Today 3d printers seem to be increasingly taken for granted and rightly so, especially if one looks at the scope of the products currently made with 3d printing (I recently wrote about “rapid prototyping” being an obsolete term since increasing amount of end products is being manufactured using this technology). This time the argument is about the marriage of desktop 3d printing and peer to peer communication. Apparently the debate started from Bruce Sterling saying that “objects are print-outs” at the Reboot 11 conference. Fast Company caught the topic and discussed “The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution”. However they did put an emphasis on the fact that the major change (if and when it happens) will not be about “desktop” manufacturing but rather that about “democratization” of manufacturing.

Clearly the idea is strong, but have some downsides. One of them is piracy. Designers, architects and manufacturers are likely to face the problem currently faced by music industry. Fluid Forms makes an argument in a similar line and I did as well – in a short article on design and piracy from 2008. The problem however is best captured in an abstract of “Napster Fabbing”, Marshall Burns’ and James Howison’s presentation from 2001 quoted by Ponoko blog:

“If record companies had a fit over Napster, wait ’til manufacturers find out you can download Rolex.fab or Ferrari.fab and make them yourself.”

Clearly these problems will demand a new approach. However they do open new possibilities as well. Particularly the possibility of peer production of objects and, with time, of spaces as well. It’s easy to guess that the name of this blog is derived from this notion. Companies allowing it’s customers to customize their products on-line will have to adapt first since they are the ones most likely to suffer from eventual fraud. They are less immune for two reasons:

- their products are expressed entirely in a form of a code and the code is available online.

- their products are manufactured using CAM – technologies available not only to large-scale manufacturers but to private people as well.

It means that mass customization practitioners will soon have to figure out a new business model in which a product code is shared and open-sourced to some extend. When that happens the phrase “open-source design” will gain a new meaning – one similar to meaning of “open-source” in computer science community.

Last question is how far away are we from being able to manufacture “Rolex.fab” or “Ferrari.fab” using additive digital manufacturing techniques at home? Recently published report: “Road Map for Additive Fabrication: Identyfing of Freeform Processing” might be a good start for looking for an answer (I have found it via Replicator blog. It seems that the development in additive manufacturing technology takes place on an increasingly high pace and a new multi-material 3d printer from Objet proves that.