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Open Source Hardware Approaching Critical Mass
angry tapir writes: The Open Compute Project, which wants to open up hardware the same way Linux opened up software, is starting to tackle its forklift problem. You can't download boxes or racks, so open-source hardware needs a supply chain, said OCP President and Chairman Frank Frankovsky, kicking off the Open Compute Project Summit in San Jose. The companies looking to adopt this kind of gear include some blue-chip names: Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Capital One are members. The idea is that if a lot of vendors build hardware to OCP specifications, IT departments will have more suppliers to choose from offering gear they can easily bring into their data centers. Standard hardware can also provide more platforms for innovative software, Frankovsky said. Now HP and other vendors are starting to deliver OCP systems in a way the average IT department understands. At the same time, the organization is taking steps to make sure new projects are commercially viable rather than just exercises in technology.
Open Source Hardware Approaching Critical Mass
I knew I should never have tried 3d printing with plutonium.
The world owes me for all the free stuff I gave away to anyone who can use it.
Do they have plans for New Detroit?
Today seems like a good day to burn a bridge or two
The one with old wood creaking that would burn away right on cue
I try to be not like that but some people really suck
Some people need to get the axing chalk it up to bad luck
I know a drugstore cowgirl so afraid of getting bored
She's always running from something so many things ignored
I might do that stuff if it didn't make me feel like shit
I'm on some old reality tip so many trips in it
Beautiful disaster
Flyin' down the street again
I tried to keep up
You wore me out and left me ate up
Now I wish you all the luck
You're a butterfly in the wind without a care
A pretty train crash to me and I can't care
I do I don't whatever
I know a drugstore cowgirl so afraid of getting bored
She's always running from something so many things ignored
I try to be not like this but I thought it'd make a good song
There's nothing to see shows over people just move along
Beautiful disaster
Flyin' down the street again
I tried to keep up
You wore me out and left me ate up
Now I wish you all the luck
You're a butterfly in the wind without a care
A pretty train crash to me and I can't care
I do I don't whatever
Yes, let's get BoA, HP and the others into it so we can screw up OSH.
With HW going open source, shall we now start hating HW patenting similar to how we hate SW patenting?
What is the fundamental difference between e.g. python and pyhdl http://pyhdl.net/?
Or have we (secretly) hated HW patenting all along, just as bad as SW patenting?
Or is it just the current setup of the patent system that is the problem?
How can you have open source hardware? Is it just hardware that has the schematics available?
Can you download their schematics and PCB layouts? Not that it would be terribly useful, but it would bring the use of the term "open source hardware" in line with how others use it.
...to go with this? I'm aware of various schematic/pcb/mechanical packages, but I've yet to find any FPGA tools such as each vendor gives away to get you to use their devices.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
I am a newbie when it comes to open source hardware but doesn't things like arduino and raspberry pi do not need any chain (owing to non proprietary nature) for distribution and ebay/alibaba can do the rest.
Fuck Beta
Perhaps this time they will get Robocop right!
The raspi is full of proprietary. The ATmega's on the Arduino are not exactly open either, AFAIK (but at least properly documented)
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Hewlett Packard was still around.
The TLAs will never allow 100% transparency of all the silicon that would expose their mandated backdoors.
The hardware that the OCP, and companies it represents, are interested in tends to be the slightly bigger stuff: They are outfits whose business depends on running a lot of servers and switches and storage; who have gotten large enough that they are trying to push back against the convenient; but expensive and lock-in prone, vendor-specific tools, interfaces, chassis designs, etc. provided by HP, Dell, Cisco, etc.
When they say that they 'need a supply chain', it's because they are really only interested in partially killing off the traditional enterprise hardware vendor. Being able to call, say, Dell, order however many R730s, with the level of warranty support(from 'statutory minimum, if any, to '4+ years of on-site-within-4-hours) you want; and have them all show up, assembled as ordered, on the loading dock is extremely convenient. Practically essential if you don't want to set up an in-house whitebox assembly line.
They still want that sort of supplier service: call up, tell them what you want and what, if any, warranty you want, have them arrive at your door; but they want to standardize, as much as possible, hardware between vendors, so you would barely notice whether you are popping in HP, Dell, Supermicro, etc. modules, everything will just fit and they'll all report the same values and respond to the same commands from your management system.
That's more customer service than hobbyist procurement(which has its place, random pacific rim vendors on ebay have their quirks; but they sure are cheap, and often do have what you require); they just want to be able to get that logistics expertise; but decoupled from the traditional branded faceplates and ill-standardized LOM intefaces and various other delightful aspects of dealing with hardware vendors.
You can buy tubes of ATmega chips for a fairly trivial amount, though, well below the cost for finished Arduino boards, and if you chose a through-hole version of the Arduino board, you can even use it like a 'development system' emulator and write all your code for the bare processor chip, use the board like a 'burner' for the chips and drop bare chips into your finished design;.
The Open Compute Project, which wants to open up hardware the same way Linux opened up software, is starting to tackle its forklift problem.
That's not the important problem with open source hardware. Actually making hardware is a fairly straightforward, albeit costly, proposition. I should know since I run a manufacturing company. Give me a design and an adequate amount of cash and I can get any product made and delivered wherever you want it. That's not the real obstacle to open source hardware.
The important problem is that hardware is (generally) protected by patents whereas software is (generally) protected by copyright. It's easy to write a license (see GPL) that does useful things with copyright law for a product like software. It is highly non-trivial to do the same thing with patents for a product like hardware, especially under a first-to-file patent system. To accomplish something similar to the GPL or BSD license you would have to have someone spend the money to patent a technology and then make it available for community use AND be willing and able (read $$$) to fight to protect the community. This costs a LOT of money, takes a lot of time and at the end of the day you probably cannot use it in any meaningful product without infringing on about 20 other patents from potentially uncooperative companies like Apple or Google, not to mention patent trolls.
Open source software works because of a happy confluence of circumstances. Software is automatically covered by copyright and there is zero cost to get a copyright. Software also has effectively zero marginal cost to reproduce and can be easily improved by someone skilled in development. Hardware is not automatically protected and the costs to get a patent are substantial. Hardware is not at all cheap to reproduce and while it can be improved, it takes still more money to make and distribute and test those improvements.
You can buy tubes of ATmega chips for a fairly trivial amount
The ATmega chips are still proprietary and blackboxed. There is a documentation for normal functionality, but the debug protocol isn't very well documented. The regular developer can't really know if the chip contains undocumented ROM areas or if program readout is possible through the debug interface in some way even if it is supposed to be deactivated with fuse bits.
And if it involves any custom ASICs, it's a very costly proposition.
It's not just ASICs. Any hardware that would involve custom tooling tends to be VERY expensive. I'm getting a quote right now on a very simple custom molded plastic connector which we are going to produce in modest volumes. The tooling is basically a piece of CNC milled aluminum and it will cost us about $8000. This is to produce a connector that will sell for about $1.00 each and we might make $0.10 profit per unit. That cost doesn't include labor, raw materials, the cost of the machine the tooling will run on, overhead, or delivery costs.
Everyone is going on and on about 3D printing and it is super cool and useful but not the way a lot of people think. 3D printing is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive for any kind of volume manufacturing. It eliminates setup costs but the cost/unit of production is far, far higher than with other techniques. If the production volume is sufficient to justify tooling a process like injection molding can produce plastic parts far cheaper than 3D printing could ever hope to achieve. The part that I mention above if I were to have it 3D printed would cost about $40/unit and I couldn't get more than a handful made per day.
Manufacturing isn't cheap or easy. Software guys (understandably) tend to thing everything works like software when in fact very few industries even remotely resemble software. They tend to fall into the trap of having a hammer and thinking every problem is a nail. Manufacturing hardware could not be more different.
Suppose you could do the impossible; create a generic computer system that is not burdened with patents. It would cost money to come up with the prototype, and then you would have to consider manufacturing it. A system of hardware devoid of protection from competition.
Your investment in manufacturing equipment, location, employees etc will have to result in profits or all is lost. But, having laid some of the groundwork, done some of the initial research, you now face competitors who have the benefit of that expensive research.
The wonderful generic computer is, of course, generic. They are all the same. Any attempt to distinguish your product from another would risk patent wars or compatibility problems. The buyers demand that they be the same. And they will only buy from the lowest bidders.
So the only way for your business to succeed is to find a way to make them at a lower cost. Foreign labor? Inferior parts? Robotic assembly? It will be a cutthroat price competition. You have wasted vast resources of time, labor and money to enter an unwinnable competition.
...omphaloskepsis often...
They already have all this. Companies like Quanta and Hyve are shipping millions of OCP servers per year. That necessitates that there is solid supply chain.