IDEA 20090110 OpenMachineGun

OMG is the Open Machine Gun project.

The original idea is to create an open source machine gun, where the plans for the machine gun are open and available for anyone to download and create.

The concept behind this is to question the idealism of free and open source software projects, and those behind them. Is it even right to have this idea and/or to make an open source machine gun? Is FLOSS only to be created to allow for constructive creations for mankind?

After I initially posted this, it looks like this blog post already took over the number one spot for open machine gun. I'm not sure if that is good or not.

UPDATE: At first, I envisioned this project as developing the plans for an open source machine gun. This means the plans are available to anyone. After talking it over with Deer Fang, I realized that doing this would more than likely put us onto a DO NOT FLY list and not help our already difficult time traveling with Deer's chinese passport.

Thus, the revised project is to make a User Generated Content upload website where their is a simple system that requires confidential private information to be submitted in order to upload to the system. Thus, the person or entity that releases a plan is held accountable for their action by anyone who visits the website. Of course, this might mean instant fame for the person submitting the plans, but it could also mean that anyone can make a decision about what this all means.

Another idea is to aggregate and search for other gun plans on the internet, which you can already find, and expose the identity of the people who are releasing these plans.

Robin Peckham said this:

Jon Phillips: This piece relates to the twin ideas of "open source" and shanzhai. A migrant worker is hired in Shenzhen to disassemble an AK-47 assault rifle and carefully document the entire process. The new plans created are sent to different factories, each of which creates a different set of parts, such that no factory creates a recognizable "gun" complex. The plans are then released under a Creative Commons license, moved across the border into Hong Kong without the hardware, and locked inside a secured shipping container such that no one can access. The project interrogates super-legal freight movement and the idea of shanzhai in cross-border innovation, while pointing towards weak areas in border security.