Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Appliquées à la Gestion

Open source hardware (OSH) initiatives are collectively managed projects enabled by the internet and digital fabrication tools. They allow people to create products in a cheaper, faster, and more efficient manner. To date, there is no strategic and actionable framework using the commons theory for analyzing how these hardware initiatives develop economically effective and sustainable business models. Based on an analysis of the business models of 27 community-based and community-oriented OSH initiatives studied over a 3-year period, this chapter presents such a framework. The five-stages spiral framework offers to guide companies and startups involved in OSH to interact with their surrounding innovation ecosystems progressively, enrich their value propositions and grow in impact.