 by Flemming Funch
Make Magazine has a nice overview article of what open source hardware would look like, and what different layers we'd be talking about. They're focusing on electronics, which probably makes good sense as one of the first fields where it might work. The different layers they're talking about are:- Hardware (Mechanical) diagrams
- Schematics & Circuit diagrams
- Parts list
- Layout diagrams
- Core/Firmware
- Software/API
- Projects
Obviously it is more complicated to open source hardware than software, where you just need to download some code. So, there are many possible projects that open source just some parts, but not others. If you have the diagrams and parts list for some device, you can in principle go and buy the parts and build it, but the components aren't open source, of course. Until the point where you have a nanotech matter compiler, it will always be a bit incomplete. But it sounds like smart people are expanding what is possible.
|
|