right on - now take this to some DARPA PMs, convince them of the national security risk inherent in closed hardware that almost always comes from abroad and is for all sorts of military/infrastructure things. if they end up making a program, you'll have a fairly solid if not bureaucratic funding to bootstrap your puri.sm analog.
After watching this[0], please feel free to make a donation to any FOSS organization of your choosing such as the Open Source Initiative[1]. You can learn more at the DARPA Open Government website[2].
...the FOSS enthusiast would have to be naive to think DARPA wasn't aware of FOSS and had FOSS efforts. But more importantly -
People in defense track everything - down to the wafer. Going "have you tried FOSS, you could verify everything!" To someone in an industry where we...already verify everything...would be hilarious.
A naive FOSS enthusiast would probably make their ideas available freely and openly. There's nothing preventing you from getting your wish as well, though.
Very interesting I always used Creative commons for hardware, is CC in its variations not good enough for hardware? I have seen sparkfun designs with CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
> I always used Creative commons for hardware, is CC in its variations not good enough for hardware?
It's a poor fit. The Creative Commons licenses are primarily designed to be applied to artistic works, like literature, photographs, or music. It's unclear how some parts of those licenses would apply to hardware designs or software programs; indeed, Creative Commons discourages the use of their licenses for software.
CC is geared more toward content/documents. People can and do use it for hardware, but it's not a great fit. In the article they talk about some of the challenges like the building blocks of most electronic designs (i.e. chips, passives and other components) not being things that can realistically be covered in the license. And the fact that a lot of the more interesting 'hardware' actually needs to include both hardware and software (i.e. firmware). I'm sure patents are another area that are at least a bit different with open hardware since it's almost impossible to source a microprocessor, for example, that isn't covered by numerous patents.
If you can't afford an international team of IP lawyers to actually enforce your rights, then your license really isn't anything more than a polite explanation of what people should and shouldn't do with your work.
Creative Commons and its variants excel in this regard - anyone acting in good faith knows exactly what your boundaries are and they're explained clearly on the website.
CERN's OHL, on the other hand, is a little bit more opaque and less well understood.
>CERN ended up with three variants. There is a strong reciprocal licence (CERN-OHL-S), which is for designs that remain free along with all their derivatives, a copyleft principle similar to GPL.
>There is a weak reciprocal licence where the design can be used as a component in other designs without the whole becoming open source, but if the design of the component is modified, that must be shared back (CERN-OHL-W). And there is a permissive licence, CERN-OHL-P, which lets users mix the design freely with proprietary designs provided it is acknowledged, similar to Apache 2.0 in the software world.
Now all we need is the open hardware itself. Private manufacturers simply don't have any incentive for this. It has to be state or non-profit funded, but those have problems with attracting and retaining talent, as well as the existing IP issues. Any open hardware will likely face IP lawsuits and WTO sanctions.
Depending on your target market, open-sourcing your hardware makes a lot of sense.
I open-sourced my commercial USB oscilloscope design (https://github.com/EspoTek/Labrador) after doing a bit of research into boards targeted at electronics hobbyists and crowdfunded by individuals or small teams.
Invariably, a community didn't form around the closed-source boards and they died.
A lot of people asked me what I'm doing to protect my IP from being "stolen".
The most effective solution I've found so far is efficient logistics. I take advantage of 3PL companies in Shenzhen, as well as Amazon FBA in the US (and Europe soon) to make sure that it's easy for customers anywhere in the world to buy the product.
So far, I've sold close to 10k units and the the only clones I've seen were made by a student in Iran for personal use.
By using streamlined logistics services and marketing direct to consumer on Amazon, and also responsive tech support. There's no reason that Shenzhen clone houses should offer better service than the genuine product.
