Commercial outfit, or just a bloke with a soldering iron?

[exxos]

This has been rattling around my head for a while, so I thought I would throw it out there, especially as the forum has been a bit quiet lately.

Every so often I see my hardware referred to as the "commercial version", or myself as a commercial outfit. I am not bothered by it in the slightest, and I understand where it comes from. I design things, build them, sell them and ship them, which is by definition commercial behaviour. I am just not convinced it is the right word, and I am curious what others think.

For me, "commercial" conjures up an image of a proper company, with staff, offices and someone in charge of the accounts department. The reality is a guy in a bedroom with a soldering iron, just like everyone else in the community. If I am a commercial outfit, I would like a word with whoever is supposed to be running the canteen.

The reason my stuff is closed source is a practical one rather than a philosophical one. A lot of people cannot solder, or simply do not want to, and they want something ready-made that just works. To provide that, I have to build batches, which means buying parts and boards up front and putting in a lot of time. Store sales go back into the pot to fund the next batch and other projects. In practice, I am out of pocket until every item in a batch has sold, and over many projects and many years that adds up to a fair sum that I am still waiting to see come back.

If I open sourced everything, that model falls apart. Some people would build their own and be very happy, which is fine, but there would not be enough sales left to justify building batches for everyone else. The people who cannot build things themselves would then be relying on someone else to build them and sell them on, which brings me to my question.

If someone builds open source hardware and sells it to end users, are they a commercial outfit too? They would be doing essentially the same thing I do, just with someone else's design.

The problem with "commercial" is that it tends to get put in a bad light the moment people start comparing open source with things you have to buy. Yes, money changes hands, so in that sense it is commercial. But it is not profit driven. It is community driven, and after the money and time I have sunk into it over the years, I would be amazed if the books ever balanced.

Personally, I think "exxos's version" would do the job just fine. It says who made it without implying anything else.

So is "commercial" the right term, or is there a better one? Where do you draw the line between hobbyist and commercial in a scene like ours?

Genuinely interested to hear people's thoughts.

[elterwater]

I'd say you're more homebrew / craft fair.

Having seen some of his assembly tooling videos, you're a world away from Lotharek's assembly facilities which are very much more on the commercial side

Like the people who bake and sell cakes from their home kitchen vs those with small teams and a dedicated industrial unit.

[stephen_usher]

I've seen quite a few "small industries" which work like you do, especially in niche technical fields when there are either small production runs or bespoke services. Gearing up for "industrial" production is costly and only worth it above a certain run length.

Lotharek sells a lot of a few things. I believe I've read an interview where he says that he has little knowledge of the electronics of the things he builds, he just knows how to produce them and has the facilities.