Free Hardware Design

Definition

1.

Definition by Graham Seaman, advocate of Open Hardware, from an article on the history, present and future of 'free hardware design'. [1]

"Free Design Practice

Designs are owned by the people who create them. Ownership is protected by copyright law only. The intention is to make designs as widely available as possible.

There is every incentive to build on older designs, to collaborate with as wide a spread of people as possible, and to make the designs widely known. NGOs in developing countries are not locked out, but encouraged to reuse designs.

Designs are driven by the wishes of their creators. The end goal can be whatever they wish.

Users of the end product can not only know how it works, but are encouraged to create improvements or modify it for their own purposes."

2.

Christoph Beaupoil:

"What makes some blueprints in public domain a Free Hardware project?

1. A community of developers and users

2. Effective medium for information sharing

3. Lowest possible effort to convert the design to useful hardware

4. Low cost of imperfect builds

5. A license granting

        1. Freely available Design
        2. Freedom to modify
        3. Free redistribution"

More Information

Free Hardware Design - Past, Present, Future, at http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html

Business Models for Open Source hardware design, at http://pages.nyu.edu/~gmp216/papers/bmfosh-1.0.html