I think its a load of hooey.

Open source software is one thing, and probably will continue to evolve. You want to open source a product that uses a product, Ok sounds great.
My shop is completely burried in extraordinarily complex and or large parts to be made.
I use three resources to accomplish this besides software, machinery, manpower and tooling
The machinery is the only part of the puzzle that could be open sourced because its pretty much irrelevant where it came from. be it a makino or bridgeport it simply doesn't matter who made the machine.
With that said lets focus on the manpower and tooling
If the drawings were open sourced for my customers parts that doesn't necesarily mean anyone can make the parts, for that matter most anything can be reverse engineered.
its talent and technique thats not open sourcable. and those two inanimate things will stop open sourcing of the manufacturing cold in its tracks.
of course there are a lot of bright people out there and if you give them the drawings they probably could whittle it out. manufacture the product succesfully and make a profit? that takes volume.
for example: I can make a pocket knife quite well. be it a folder, a lock blade it doesn't matter
I can make me a realy nice one, but at what cost. there is no way I can make them as good or as quick and profitable as a production knife. it will allways be better and cheaper to just buy one.
as you concider the open sourcing of product I would like you to think of this one thing that will forever in time lock it up.....
Someone had to chip them arrow heads and it wasn't everyone that could do it.

ETR, I think you nailed it in the head. I come from a part of the world with of city of over 4 million and only one known five axis CNC machine. They use it to copy shoes. Nice machines are hard to come by and I see the benefit of open sourcing certain machine tools.

Embedded know how will always remain key, secretive and hard to copy. Many developments in technology have been lost or forgotten for such reasons. Plenty of examples form medical treatments to cements, its formulation forgotten for 10 centuries.

And just as some things won't be shared, others are not worth sharing. In fact I think printers are a bad example, having worked in the printer world, their success actually stems form high volume low cost production and incredible quality.

Barrera
I would like to colaborate with you on a project I've been working on is there a chance we could talk on the phone?

I'm not only warming up to this I'm embracing it.

I love the idea anymore. I look around in my tool room and find so much money I've got wrapped up in tooling that I could have easily made myself. and most of it I would be completely free to sell at my leisure because the designs has been around far beyond any patent rights. I'm staring to market my own tooling now and yes I'm going to offer the designs for open sourcing...

starting with simple collet holdes and tapping heads then more sofisticated stuff later. but definately taking a new turn in my business and not so much a job shop as a tool shop now.