From the FAQ: <i>You may use the hovalin for commercial purposes if you agree to send 10% of your gross revenue from use of the design to HOVA LLC every six months.</i><p>It may be open source, but it's not open source as I've ever encountered it before.<p>(Also, I don't think I've ever heard someone claim that <i>copyright law</i> allows them to demand royalties on the use of a musical instrument. Is a musical performance a derivative work of the instrument design?)
To me the idea of printing my own violin would be to get a cheap yet decently functional Violin. The price point of $70 is 2x what it needs to be in my opinion. Going on ebay there are entry level violins for $40.<p>Would be cool to see an open source piano
The fingerboard looks much shorter than on a standard violin. Maybe the materials can't support being cantilevered out over the body like a regular wooden fingerboard? If so, bummer... seems like it would have a pretty adverse effect on range, fingering options, etc.
Pretty cool achievement. The prices ($300, $450, $600) for the different kinds of kits make this seem like a poor investment if one is just looking for a violin.