Web site promoting open hardware?

Wolfgang Spraul wolfgang at qi-hardware.com
Fri Sep 11 04:07:57 CEST 2009


Stefan,
what would drive someone to this site/list and what are the criteria people
are looking for?

I think at some point I will start to work on a table of 'hackable' hardware,
because at least technically it's relatively easy to pin down features:
Reflashable, unbrickable, all drivers in source form or some in binary,
toolchain open, schematics/datasheets/layout/BOM published or not, etc.

But this is only interesting to hackers, not normal users.
What if a company supports the free software scene covertly (quite a few do
because the reason they fear openness are patents, not hackers)?
Who should 'rank' or 'qualify' hardware makers for how 'open' they are?

I think we first need to define why someone is looking for openness, and
what they expect from it.
Can you explain your motives? What makes you interested in Openmoko, Qi,
OpenPandora, etc.?
Thanks,
Wolfgang

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:00:49AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> While looking for new hardware, I noticed that all the open hardware
> I know, I discovered it by accident while reading some mailing-list.
> 
> Is there a web site somewhere that kind of centralizes this info to try
> and make it easier for openness-conscious consumers to find
> appropriate hardware?  Of course, there are various notions of "open
> hardware", so there might be parts of the site for hardware-hackers, for
> example, but I'm more interested in a web-site for end-users.  Also it
> might include hardware that is not itself open source, but where the
> company states a clear commitment to Free Software principles.
> 
> I.e. a site that links to things like Openmoko, Qi, AlwaysInnovating,
> maybe Lemote, OpenPandora, ...
> 
> Any hint?
> 
> 
>         Stefan
> 
> 
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