Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity

[Langy]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

There will probably be a lot of legal open source hardware to begin with from various programmers who do that sort of thing, just like in the real world.

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With open source hardware I could picture research costs being lower because most complex devices could be made of low-level components that are freely available. Open source object oriented hardware!

Open source hardware may not exist if there's only one manufacturer of the nanofac with a monopoly on the process, or the government mandates the draconian DRM measures.