The first open-source ventilator tested on human patients
Much respect to these people for continuing the project even after it became clear that ventilators aren't uniquely useful for treating covid.<p>If they can get the relevant certifications and work out how to handle reliable servicing, it could be a significant boon to the medical community, especially in areas where cost is an issue.<p>Better yet, it could show people that it is possible to develop critical medical devices without relying on a heavy veil of secrecy and NDAs, and give a much-needed leg up to projects developing devices like ultrasound imagers or EKGs/EEGs/etc.<p>Here's hoping they can clear the regulatory hurdles without much difficulty and let people buy them without MIT-style license disclaimers, but it looks like those problems will likely fall on local manufacturers.<p>Which raises an interesting question: is it smart to be the first company to start mass-producing an open-source medical device? You would need to foot the heavy certification bill as a large capital investment, while any future competitors wouldn't.