Looking around at the state of commercial nano, I’d say it is just getting started. Some of us don’t really ascribe to the idea that using small particle materials is true nanotechnology, but that is the practical definition at the moment. True nanotech is building things from atoms and molecules – not from particles made up of millions of atoms in each particle.

So when do we see open source nano? When the tools become cheap enough or available to individuals. Not there yet. But I’d like to think that good things can come from open source nano. There are certainly many software applications that are open source. Blender 3D, the free animation software I use, is a great example. The primary attribute of an open source product is that it can be reproduced at little or no cost. Nano is the only potential hardware technology where that may one day be true as it is with software.

Also, you get a different set of goals from open source than you get from entrepreneur driven commercial development. The entrepreneur seeks to please the mainstream. Open source tries to deliver something better than, or cheaper than, what is available to the mainstream for a price. You get idealism, in a good way, from open source. And that is what I hope for in nano. Who else would create a food machine and give it away to hungry people? Who else would put tremendous creative effort into a project just to give it away for the good of the world? That’s what you get with nano, the ability to build a device that can extrude rice as well as a copy of itself. And yes, that will be done safely although it is a very difficult job.

Open source nano gives power to the people, it frees them from the rat race. It distributes power rather than concentrating it in a few individuals who may or may not have our interests at heart.

Will it happen? Yes, but maybe not soon. The only obstacle is fear. Putting the power to design anything into the hands of any individual guarantees you will get both good and evil results. Humans are both or they produce both, so they will produce good nano and evil nano. Do we forgo the good because we fear the evil? I hope not. Can good nano protect us from evil nano? It better and it can’t if the good is restricted in a “drug war” against nano. So, don’t EVER hide your head in the sand and try to suppress nano-research. Fight to improve it and be ready to take the bad with the good.

I’m starting a series of articles and design projects on open source nano. If you have ideas you are willing to contribute, I welcome your comments. My first project is a nano-lab on a silicon chip. I’ll put the animations here as they are produced.