Founded in 2005 by Dr Adrian Bowyer, the RepRap open source/open hardware community has been highly instrumental in the democratisation of 3D printing technologies. By designing a ‘self-replicating’ 3D printer made of 3D printed elements (for 70% of it) and readily available parts and electronics, the RepRap team was able to bring down the cost of a 3D printer from well above €35,000 to less than €500. Yet, the first RepRap printers were notoriously finicky and unreliable, but because hardware blueprints and computer codes were released under the “open source” GPL licence, this gave birth to a large community that improved the original printer model and created new ones (over 70 models nowadays). Two of the current desktop 3D printing market leaders, Makerbot and Ultimaker, have emerged from the RepRap community and the work of this community has been an inspiration for countless startups and companies, to the point that it can be argued that virtually all desktop 3D printers commercialised today owe something to the RepRap community. While this is not the first time commercialisation and sharing coexist within a large-scale open innovation community, such communities have been generally related to software and content (e.g. open source software). Because RepRap is related to hardware, this causes two significant issues. The first one is that Intellectual Property is of little relevance (unlike for software and content, where copyright offers a relatively strong protection). The second one is that, in contrast with software and content, for which diffusion is essentially costless, hardware entails significant diffusion costs. Simply putting a blueprint of a new 3D printer online makes it highly unlikely that anyone will adopt it, as a substantial investment (sourcing and manufacturing of the parts, product assembly) is required. Thus, unless the innovators invest in diffusion, by commercialising their invention (as a kit or assembled product), it is doubtful that diffusion will take place. Thus, in contrast to software and content, commercialisation in open hardware communities is an option, but a requirement. Because commercialising and free sharing do not usually go along well, this is a source of conflict within the community that undermines its viability. This paper argues that in such a context, norms within the community play a fundamental role, as they enable to define what forms of commercialisation are acceptable and, as a result, promote free sharing. The methodology used is explorative. 15 semi-structured interviews of funders of companies that commercialise desktop 3D printers were conducted to identify the norms related to commercialisation and sharing. To confirm the existence of the norms identified, a detailed case study of MakerBot commercialisation history and a content analysis of resulting blog posts from community members were conducted. Results are that while norms related to commercialisation and sharing, as well as punishments when not conforming to the norm, indeed exist, they are multidimensional and encompass a variety of factors. This enables us to explain while companies that seemingly abide the ‘rules’ were shunned, while other that did not conform to the norm were not.
