With ventilators in dangerously short supply during the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of DIY groups have begun working on open source designs that could be made at home. Julian Botta, a third year resident in emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins, created a Google Doc listing some of the basic specifications for a ventilator and how a do-it-yourself version might be assembled.

The doc, called ‘Specifications for simple open source mechanical ventilator,’ is not affiliated in any way with Johns Hopkins, and is instead a purely personal pursuit for Botta. The idea came to him after he saw several similar projects spread across Github but was concerned that many of the designs were closer to CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines than ventilators, according to a report in Vice.

[Source: Daily Mail]

Open source developments in music are leading the industry in a new direction. An increasing number of creators, for example, are building custom instruments and software, then choosing to make the products open source, or sharable in source code format, which allows other creators to produce derivative works free of charge for non-commercial use.

“While open sourcing has been happening on a small scale among academics for some time, it converted over the past few years and is now growing mainstream,” says Ajay Kapur, professor and director of music technology at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), pointing to a new movement of electronic artists seeking to create unique sounds and names for themselves on social media. “It’s been really amazing, there has been so much open source stuff happening in the industry driven by the maker movement.”

[Source: Forbes]