There is a growing movement to open source hardware design in the a similar way to software, for example the “Hexayurt shelter“:

The Hexayurt is a prize-winning shelter you can build yourself for about $200 (backup link). Suitable raw materials include common building materials ( fire safe insulation boards,) hexacomb cardboard and plastic. You cut six 4′ x 8′ panels in half diagonally to make the roof, and use six more whole panels to form the walls. It takes about two hours. The design (backup link) is in the public domain.

This has huge potential as a disaster relief shelter, and could be constructed in a much more timely fashion from locally available materials (the other option is to buy and import large numbers of tents to a disaster area).

Open source is known to foster quick innovation and has produced some of the best software of the last few years ((Firefox and Linux are the obvious examples but also the Webkit rendering engine (used by Safari and Chrome), Mac OS X’s Darwin core and countless others)).

If the same priciples of collaborative design and information sharing can be applied by a group of hardware enthusiasts (say Mechanical, Electrical and Electronic engineers), I think we could see real break-through in all kinds of new, fast growth areas of engineering (Green technology being the obvious example).

Of course we could just stick to proprietry technlogy, closely guarded patents and profits at all costs, but where’s the fun in that?