Can open source hardware work

hmm yes....
good question.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_openmanufacturing?currentPage=1



"That's how Chinese hardware copycats rip off products so quickly...

Last year, Arduino noticed that copycat versions of its board made in China and Taiwan were being sold online.....

many Asian knockoffs were poor quality, rife with soldering errors and flimsy pin connections. The competition created a larger market but also ensured that the original makers stayed a generation ahead of the cheap imitations. Merely having the specs for a product doesn't mean a copycat will make a quality item. That takes skill, and the Arduino team understood its device better than just about anyone else. "So the copycats can actually turn out to be good for our business,"



hmm, and there are not (allowed to be) open source communities in China?
The xenophobic, jingoistic nature of these comments are quite worrying, cmmon!!
{quality is quality , skill is skill}