What Is the Meaning of Open Source Hardware?
Open source technologies are technologies with licenses that give the users permission to study, change and improve the design, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. The “open source” label is most commonly applied to software, because it is easy to see how a programmer could load a program into a text editor, modify a couple of lines or modules and recompile. However, hardware can be open sourced too even if the actual implementation is a bit more tricky.
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In a Nutshell
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Most open source hardware designers can sell you an actual, physical implementation of their devices, but you can also make your own if you have access to the manufacturing technology, as the mechanical diagrams, part lists, layout and circuit diagrams, firmware and APIs are made available.
Licensing Considerations
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The design is usually owned by the creator, depending on the licensing scheme, but users are encouraged to copy or improve the original at will as long as attribution is provided and the modified design is distributed as open source.
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Economic Considerations
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In contrast to open source software, which can be created for free given enough time, the creation of open source hardware will take both time and money: A program can become real just by running a free compiler, but a schematic will not become real unless money is invested for building the prototypes and setting up the manufacturing infrastructure. Some OS projects are self-funded, with the designers taking the financial risk and betting on commercial success. Other projects are funded by venture capital or by organizations like the Open Source Hardware Bank.
Notable Projects
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Although a business model that begins by giving its own intellectual property away may sound financially dubious, there have been several multi-million OS hardware projects in the history of the movement. Arduino, an open-source computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board that can be used to develop interactive objects, is one of them. Bug Labs, a designer of “Lego-like” modular computers that can be assembled, disassembled and reprogrammed for rapid prototyping approached the millions in revenue in 2010 too. Liquidware, a company designing open hardware accessories for the Arduino platform, shows that OS HW initiatives can create their own business ecosystems.
Personal Replicators
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In the absence of limitations posed by intellectual property laws, the main obstacle for the unlimited distribution of open hardware projects is the manufacture itself. Taking the open source philosophy to its logical limit, the ideal world would have a universal factory in every house, capable of producing any item as long as it has the blueprints. That is the vision behind projects like the personal replicator RepRap. Personal replicators are general-purpose 3D printers that can potentially “print” the pieces required for open source hardware projects or for consumer products. Some of those machines can even “print” most of the pieces needed to assemble another copy of the same machine, aiming toward a future when instead of buying things at a store you can just download them.
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