Dutch state fighting open-hardware movement | Hacker News Reader

Dutch state fighting open-hardware movement

4 pointshstarmans3 comments

I created an open-hardware project and got part of my inspiration while working for the Dutch State (TNO). The core idea is that a laser bundle is moved by rotating a prism. The Dutch state got a patent for a plurality of laser bundles but not for a single laser bundle. For the printed circuit board application, it founded LDI Systems in 2015. This failed and they wasted multiple million tax dollars. I only spent 10K dollars on a working system and paid taxes. I thought they would leave it there. But TNO requested a loan from the Dutch government (NWO) to pump 250K euro into a new shell company AM systems BV for the 3D printing application. This allows them to circumvent tender law and spent the money at free will. Most likely they will redirect the money to an optical consultancy. This is crazy! How can a country that created Python be so against open hardware!? Why do nation states create shell companies to escape their own tender laws, they could simply change the law!

Hello there from a (fellow) Dutch person,

If I understand it correctly: The Dutch government tried a similar project. Failed. Then based on seeing your open source project they are starting a company to monetize the open source project you proved works?

Perhaps I'm missing some information but isn't this the whole purpose of open source that anyone can use it to build anything? (and the purpose of patents to restrict other (for profit) organizations to use your IP?)

Open source stimulates reuse. People are typically bound by a MIT or GPL license. But let's get back to the issue at hand here. Innovation loans should be given to people who have innovative ideas AND take part of the risk. The problem I see is that building a prism scanner isn't that innovative seen the information available AND the business developer in the entity doesn't take a reasonable amount of risk (state is major shareholder). The developer can however freely reallocate the money. You can't do this within the government because you typically need 3 competing offers via tender law. So you can't redirect the money to another company. In this case you can and the business developer redirects the money to a company of his choosing. This company builds the prism scanner. If it works, they invest money in it. They do however not take risk but have quite some opportunities for profit. There is also a high risk they pay a kickback to the business developer or someone more higher up. My main issue here is the people who get the benefits don't have any risk exposure. My personal issue here is that I want that money and a risk free opportunity with my pet project! I would have no issues, is they would simply invest their own money.

Link: https://hackaday.io/project/21933-open-hardware-fast-high-re... Note: improved a bit by reducing word count!

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