I blame at least in part FOMOCO for not making the Model A drawings "open source." Ford had their day with them. They also used them in self serving measure to develop better automobiles to be the Model A successor. And now for them it would be a simple matter to say - "here you go hobby - something created in the interest of free enterprise - let enterprise continue to be free and don't bother us with your petty technical questions - it's all here now for you now."
(and a "don't bother us with your petty lawsuits - you're driving a design which is OBSOLETE - and Ford can't control final use OR performance.")
And the free market would use these open source prints to make parts to be the best they can be. All on the basis of capturing market demand.
Yes, there would be the loss leaders - just as there is now. Headlight clips that can't be compressed enough to fit into the slots, side aprons with the hump too shallow or in the wrong spot, or light bulbs with the filaments inverted over what was design. But the market combined with the Internet would quickly figure these things out. And they would come and go - mostly go I wager.
Reverse engineering based on extant parts can only do so much. And therein lies a good portion of our problem.
I'm trying to think of a similar product which has had a similar end of life game?
(Wikipedia here)
Thomas Jefferson once said in a letter to Isaac McPherson on August 13, 1813:
Quote:
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"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."[79]
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Ford has lit the lamp and made their money having done so. Light is now VERY common at least in part due to Ford. In fact, so common that Ford has gone on to build better and brighter and more attractive and more efficient lamps themselves. Having done so why not let everyone take something of their original flame?
One thot.
Joe K