Free Hardware Design
Free Hardware Design
Definition
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.
- Design software is free software, so that anyone who wishes to can participate.
- 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."
(http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html)
More Information
Free Hardware Design - Past, Present, Future, at http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html
Richard Stallman, on Free Hardware, at http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-22-005-05-NW-LF
Business Models for Open Source hardware design, at http://pages.nyu.edu/~gmp216/papers/bmfosh-1.0.html