The Shape of Things to Come

Printed parts for a new 3D printer.  The repraps are replicating in the wild.  With Thingiverse, the blueprints have a home, and so do the upgrades.  Instead of a single blueprint for a self-making machine, the reprap foundation has sparked a whole new ecosystem of self-making machines, and I can’t help but shiver at the possibilities.

Sure, makers aren’t the norm.  These are the early adopters, the gadget fiends, the jackdaws, who do these things.  But they are doing these things.  How soon before your neighborhood has a guy with a CNC fabrication site in his basement?  How do you know it doesn’t already?  How long before there are machine shops practically everywhere?

How long before really disruptive hardware can be open sourced like it was an operating system?

Maybe it already has.