[What is NovoMaker?]

This is going to take all of 10 minutes to hack and rip the gcode right off the Arduino. So I for one would not trust this for a second with my IP if I was concerned about it.

Secondly, there are very few designers around compared to the rest of the world's population. Most of the new, upcoming breed of designers are being fed a steady diet of open-source and free distribution of IP for non-commercial use. So this site will appeal to a very small niche of designers, who already have various avenues for selling their designs, such as their own paypal-driven websites. And they rely on the buyers to be honest and not distribute their source files. But these are few and far between.

Then you have thingiverse and youmagine which are flooded with so many designs that getting your site noticed is going to be a really tough sell.

So, what the 3D printing revolution is really about is not simply printing, but a change of culture in the distribution of two types of wealth: money, and knowledge. It is a New Economy, a socio-capitalist blend in which the correlation between money and knowledge is much looser, less defined and relies more on people playing nice than enforcing rules. I know how to build a 3D printer, I will tell you how to do it, and if you manufacture one and manage to sell it - good for you. Send me a beer.

This is really set to undermine the stranglehold the vast conglomerates currently have over our economies. By distributing knowledge freely (Ultimaker being a superb example) and allowing everyone to have a go at making money, everyone benefits at some level, and the distribution of knowledge prevents the Makerbots of this world from running off with everyone's pooled knowledge and dominating the market.

Now that I have my political manifesto off my chest, you can understand what I mean when I say your website is Old Economy trying to leverage some money out of the New Economy. It's a good trick if you can do it.

 

Well, good thought, I'm a open-source favorer. But what you favor may mislead your cognition on it.

 

Being fed a steady diet of open-source couldn't mean that the most designers will hold an attitude of exclusion on close-source site. Relatively, they need a close-source site to consummate 3D print market. And this quantity might far larger then your thought. You are not sure about it, me either.

 

Not every 3D printer user have enough patience and interests to get knowledge on this area. They just need a easy-touch product.So open-source and close-source is not a conflict existence, but to serve different needs. The fact is, market rules are compliecated, not growing that ideal as we thought.