Open sources of the invention of the airplane

1. Open sources of theinvention of the airplane Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics* * Findings and views are those of the author, not the BLS Innovation without patents workshop Geneva, April 7, 2009

2. Development of the airplane 1860s-1880s Fixed-wing aeronautics clubs and journals appear It is a niche activity -- hopeless, useless, and/or dangerous Publications in this period refer to little prior work (Wise, 1850; Mouillard, 1881; Goupil, 1884; Lilienthal, 1889; Langley 1891; Means 1891) 1894 Survey by Chanute, who refers to 190 people/experiments (also bibliographies by Tissandier, 1887 and others) Publications then refer more often to prior work. (Means 1895, 1896, 1897; Banet-Rivet, 1898) 1903 Wright brothers’ powered-glider flight ~1909 An industry arises Many designs were shared openly, and documented for us. My effort is to quantify some of this activity.

3. Chanute’s 1894 overview Progress in Flying Machines refers to or quotes more than 190 persons These are counts of pages referring to some individual. The activity is diverse and international.

4. Alphonse Pénaud Lawrence Hargrave Box kite findings ~1894 Did not patent, on principle. Presented/published many papers in Australia Engineer in France Showed importance of tail on aircraft

5. Otto Lilienthal • Founded company making steam engines in Berlin • 1860s-80s studied bird wings and experiments • 1889: published Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation • 1891-6: Flew inspirational hang gliders Why? “. . . to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird” -- Otto Lilienthal, 1889

6. Samuel Langley Professor, then Director of Smithsonian Institution in DC Tested lift and drag of planes on “whirling table” with 30-foot arm 1891: Published Experiments in Aerodynamics Wrote to and visited other experimenters Helps make aviation study legitimate 1896: Small powered gliders flew half a mile.

7. Octave Chanute French-American railroad engineer, then writer His 1894 book Progress in FlyingMachines, surveyed experiments, devices, theories Was in contact with many experimenters. Visited with Langley, Santos-Dumont, Ferber, Huffaker, Herring, Maxim and others. Corresponded with Hargrave, Mouillard, Montgomery, Cabot, Zahm, Kress, Wenham, Moy, Pilcher, Means, Lilienthal and the Wrights:

8. Otto and Gustav Lilienthals’ selected letters and contacts(Schwipps, 1993) Much overlap with Chanute’s list

9. References in aviation histories Preliminary, work in progress: Counted references to persons or institutions in the books below, combined: Crouch’s A Dream of Wings (1981/2002) Dale’s Early Flying Machines (1992) Garber’s Wright Brothers and the Birth of Aviation (2005) Gibbs-Smith’s The Invention of the Aeroplane. (1966) Hallion’s Taking Flight (2003) Hoffman.Wings of Madness (2003 biog of Santos-Dumont) Jakab’s Visions of a Flying Machine (1990) Penrose’s An Ancient Air (biography of John Stringfellow) Randolph’s Before the Wrights flew: the story of Gustave Whitehead. (1966) Runge and Lukasch Erfinder Leben (2005) (biography of Lilienthal brothers) Shulman’s Unlocking the Sky (bio of Glenn Curtiss) Now up to 2000 persons referenced. Conclusion: the same names appear

10. Patent counts tell different story Many fixed-wing flying machine patents were filed before 1907. [Data: Simine Short and Otto-Lilienthal Museum] • Little overlap with the other lists. • To my knowledge none of these patents were ever licensed • Aviation historians treat the patents and most patent-filers as irrelevant to the main inventions. • So did Chanute and the Wrights. • Claim: Intellectual property ownership was mostly irrelevant.

11. Parallels to open source software and open-, user- or distributed- innovation • Autonomous innovators (not hierarchy, not cult) • . . . with various goals • Want to fly! • Hope for recognition, prestige, fame, maybe fortune • Curious, interested in the problem • Bring peace, or make own nation safer • . . . who share technical info with international public • Intellectual property set aside • Authors, evangelists, organizers have valuable role

12. Microeconomic model (Meyer, 2007) Imagineself-motivated tinkerers making progress on some project They invest time, effort, money into experiments Let two tinkerers’ experiments add value to one another’s projects Say they are not in competition because they cannot foresee a marketable product (high “technological uncertainty”) for now  They’d agree to share findings with one another  They’d specialize to avoid duplication  They’d standardize on modular designs and tools (Market processes are not necessary for these effects)  They don’t bother with intellectual property (there’s no gain)  There is a role for an author / organizer / evangelist to expand the network and reduce duplicative efforts.  A tinkerer might change if the technological uncertainty lifts

13. Systematic measures of innovators & innovations • Who was involved before the industry existed? • To whom do the major inventors refer? • To whom do later authors and analysts refer? • Who patented? How much? Did patents matter? Such measures help distinguish open source/distributed innovation from secret or intellectual-property-type innovation These measures have problems. But one gets a super-index with “everyone relevant” The “airplane case” should be at the open extreme.

14. Wright brothers as open-sourcers 1900-1902 Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle shop. They read up on gliders and try flight experiments. • Motivations: “I am an enthusiast . . . I wish to . . . add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success." -- Wilbur Wright, 1899 "At the beginning we had no thought of recovering what we were expending, which was not great . . ." -- Orville Wright, 1953 • They published articles • They spoke at conferences • Chanute, others visited and stayed in contact

15. Wright brothers as open-sourcers 1900-1902 Wilbur’s first letter to Chanute, May 13, 1900: “Assuming then that Lilienthal was correct in his ideas of the principles. . . .” [Wilbur explains what he will do differently.] “. . . . my object is to learn to what extent similar plans have been tested and found to be failures, and also to obtain such suggestions as your great knowledge and experience might enable you to give me. I make no secret of my plans for the reason that I believe no financial profit will accrue to the inventor of the first flying machine, and that only those who are willing to give as well as to receive suggestions can hope to link their names with the honor of its discovery. The problem is too great for one man alone and unaided to solve in secret. “ “. . . the apparatus I intend to employ . . . is very similar to the "double-deck" machine with which the experiments of yourself and Mr. Herring were conducted in 1896-7.” Chanute’s reply May 17, 1900: “I have your very interesting letter of 13th, and am quite in sympathy with your proposal to experiment; especially as I believe like yourself that no financial profit is to be expected from such investigations for a long while to come.” Wrights help test Octave Chanute’s glider, Oct 1902 Wrights’ 1900 glider

16. Wright methods and inventions They are skilled, precision-minded toolsmiths, in a workshop every day. • Wind tunnel with smooth air flow • Tested many wings systematically • Propeller invention: shaped like wings, with lift going forward • This produces ~40% more pulling power . This design idea lasts to the present. They flew craft as kites and gliders both, many times No landing gear, no engine. Their piloting invention had to be learned, like on bicycle

17. Wrights exit the open-source network Late 1902: they become more secretive, apparently because of wing design success 1903: They filed for a patent on their control mechanism for the wings. Their secrecy and tight hold on patent rights lead to permanent conflicts with Chanute, Curtiss, and others. In model, a lucrative exit payoff may appear. Wrights’ first powered, controlled fixed-wing flight Dec, 1903

18. Postscript: New firms (source: Gunston, 1993)

19. Conclusions New industries can arise this way • These experimenters addressed hard problems, collectively • Experimenters aren’t in the economic models of employees, managers, investors, consumers, government. Need some model of self-motivated “tinkerers” • Phases observed: • tinkerers working alone or in small groups; (1800-1894ish, here) • tinkerers networked; (to 1908ish) • commercialization Future work • Identify information that was used? • List clubs, publications, and more patents • Find the statistical distributions of such references lists; bibliometrics • Can data fit a model?

20. Otto Lilienthal • Founded company making steam engines • 1860s-80s studied bird wings and experiments • 1889: published Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation • 1891-6: Flew inspirational hang gliders • 1896: Died after crash. Motivation: “. . . to soar upward and to glide, free as the bird” -- Otto Lilienthal, 1889 “The glory of a great . . . invention . . . destined to benefit humanity [seemed] dazzling. . . . Enthusiasm seized [us] at an early age.” -- Gustav Lilienthal, 1912

21. Samuel Langley Professor, then Director of Smithsonian Institution in DC Tested lift and drag of planes on “whirling table” with 30-foot arm 1891: Published Experiments in Aerodynamics Wrote to and visited other experimenters Helps make aviation study legitimate 1896: Small powered gliders flew half a mile. 1903: Aircraft carrying a person crashed

22. Lawrence Hargrave • Retired young • Ran many creative diverse experiments • Several flapping-wings designs • Innovative engines • Box kites showed layered wings were stable and had lift • Did not patent, on principle. • Published a lot

23. Octave Chanute Chicago railroad engineer 1880s: takes interest in flying machines 1894: Publishes Progress in FlyingMachines, which surveyed experiments, devices, theories 1896 and on: ran experiments on gliders Corresponded with, supported, visited many experimenters Chanute preferred findings to be shared so as to speed progress “[By writing lucid articles], personal correspondence, and visitation, he inspired and encouraged to the limits of his ability all who were devoted to the work.” --Wilbur Wright, 1911

24. Role for author / moderator / evangelist • Chanute corresponded with, visited, introduced experimenters, and published book • In model: A tinkerer’s best opportunity for progress may be editing, writing, speeches, evangelism • To welcome future tinkerers who could generate progress • To avoid duplicate efforts, thru standards and specialization  authors/evangelists are another kind of specialist tinkerer Octave Chanute, 1894: “The writer’s object in preparing these articles was threefold: 1. To satisfy himself whether . . . men might reasonably hope eventually to fly . . . 2. To save . . . effort on the part of experimenters trying again devices which have already failed. 3. To . . . render it less chimerical . . . to experiment with a flying machine . . . .” Analogously: Lilienthal’s public demonstrations; Felsenstein at Homebrew; open source programmers Stallman, Torvalds, etc.

25. Counting references (2)

26. Counting references (1)

27. What’s counted as a reference • An explicit reference to the person’s name or quote from the person • In a relevant book (11 so far; at least 15 to go) • Text in main content, preface, forward, introduction, appendices, pictures, tables, and figures • Table of Contents and indexes don’t count • References to something named for the person count. (Should they?) • Events after 1909 shouldn’t count (not done yet) • Only events related to aircraft work should count (not done yet) • On this view, biographies “over-refer” to the subject person • sometimes they leave the subject person out of the index (!) • Groups (brothers Wright, Lilienthal, Montgolfier , Tissandier, Voisin; likewise institutions or groups are referred to as groups and other times as individuals) •  Counts are preliminary and can never be perfect