[hackerspaces] Differences between hackerspaces and fablabs

[Shawn Nock]

maxigas <maxigas at anargeek.net> writes:

> I will not dwell on the topic of governance because others pointed out
> before me that hackerspaces would be run largely by hackers for
> hackers while others would have managers, owners, directors and
> bosses.  I would be actually very curious about the US experience
> about this, because I read many times on this list mails from people
> who claim to be "community managers" or "directors".  But I didn't
> have time to look into this further, since European hackerspaces are
> far too coplex on their own...

I started in a hackerspace (HacDC) and recently moved to a city with a
Makerspace (Melbourne, FL)... I have been shocked by the political
differences, specifically with respect to governance. It could be argued
that it's a function of location (Florida / DC)... but my (admittedly
limited) experience is that makers would rather forget that governance
is required and readily accept heirarchical forms so that 'someone else'
might worry about it.

Recently our space voted on a 'representative' system of governance
where an Executive Committee has near total control of the space (save
for elections of the committee members every 1 to 3 years) with no
transparency baked into the rules as written. At HacDC there would have
been a warmer reception to burning the space to the ground... Everyone
on the committee has a title (Director or specific office), but it's too
early to know if they will appear (or not) in email sigs.

Furthermore, while security, privacy, and free software (as topics of
research, study, and hacking) where huge at my previous hackerspace; our
makerspace seems to have little to no interest in a privacy policy where
Windows (and proprietary software) have a 5:1 representation with free
software.

I certainly feel that, in our Makerspace, political awareness has been
completely divorced from making/hacking things... I, for one, don't
appreciate this as it glosses over how interconnected they are.

Otherwise, the people are competent in similar areas and hacks/makes of
the same genres occur with similar regularity. I'd say that in this
specific case the hackerspace and makerspace are functionally identical
(if, again, you didn't care about politics). I suspect that if I hadn't
been a member of a more progressive space, I wouldn't notice or bemoan
the differences.

-- 
Shawn Nock (OpenPGP: 0x6FDA11EE 3BC412E3)