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Sourceforge + Hardware = OpenH?
dantes wrote to us about OpenH.org which is a new site focusing on open hardware, and references for hardware. Good idea - it's just starting out, but the references and designs will make life easier for open source drivers, as well as working with new systems. My only caveat is that when I read OpenH, I thought about a methadone replacement, but that might just be me.
To reproduce a hardware design, unlike software, is not within the capability of the average individual. It requires a large initial investment in time, and money to set up a production run for something. However, there are some rather interesting properties of solid-state electronics that are very similar to software. Like software, hardware requires a large investment of time and resources to design, and a small percentage to distribute. Creation a new design of a silicon chip, such as the Pentium processor, RAM, or any of the support chips on a computer requires a great deal of money and resources. First, an idea must be developed into a design, and then the design must be verified and tested. Then, after that, a great deal of resources will be put into setting up a production line to produce the design. These two steps require anywhere from 75% to 95% of the total resources involved in developing a new chip. Once the design is in production, the incremental cost of making another chip (from raw materials and running the production line itself) is extremely small. Semiconductor makers are effectively "printing money" after they have recouped their initial investment. This is why hardware and software are similiar: the incremental cost of distributing both is very small.
The role the organization I want to create would play would be to act as a focal point for the the exchange of information, and would profit by taking the best ideas and turning them into real and marketable products. Instead of having my organization go through the first step of design, I would encourage entities and stake holders outside my organization to do the design phase of the process. This way, the end customer is intimately involved in how my products turn out in a way that no current company in the high tech industry can match. By doing this, I will eliminate several of the major risk areas in high technology. No one has a better idea of what they actually want than the customers, and if they have a stake in the design of a product, they will be much more likely to buy it than if they did not. My customers for my hardware products will be my suppliers for my 'intellectual property'. I just hope that this OpenH stuff succeeds.
www.opencores.org
Open Sourcing some hardware designs now is a good idea, and a good way to begin building up a knowledge base while working out the inevitable technical kinks such a system will encounter.
Currently, it may seem that this knowledge base won't get much use, since most people don't have access to the specialty design, testing, and fabrication equipment needed to really crank out sophisticated circuit boards.
Before too long, though, you'll be able to print circuits with polymers on polymer substrates with modified ink-jet printers.
When that happens, we'll see a tremendous explosion in this segment of the industry, and Open Source will already be there.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?