[Discuss] Suggestions for the OSHWA website and FAQ?

Sparkling Science carl at sparklingscience.com
Wed Oct 3 15:13:44 UTC 2012 

Hi all,

I've been following this discussion list with great interest and since I'm quite new to this community I've been more passive but now I would like to take the opportunity to write something. I totally agree with Catarina that open source hardware is so much more than being for engineers and artists. Getting the privilege to participate at TEDGlobal this year I believe OSHWA can be the number one advocate of the openness movement (very prominent at TEDGlobal) in general and OSHW projects the examples to show people that it really works for fostering innovation and education. Although it only focused on electronics, I believe that Massimo Banzi's TED talk was a great example on how to communicate the enormous potential of this movement to laymen. 

I think right now we're at the tipping point where the ideology of OSHW will expand rapidly into more and more domains, just consider the theme of this years TEDGlobal: Radical Openness. 

I also would like to connect back to the discussion sparked by the maker bot replicator 2 and followed up by Chris Anderson that we should not be dogmatic but pragmatic about OSHW. I believe any module that can be easily modified by a community using this module should be open. This also implies that everything will never be open and it should not be the goal to enable people to build a "computer from scratch". I believe OSHW is all about facilitating "modularity", enabling people to modify and build upon that which is practical and possible to modify, which probably don't include some things like e.g. the tiniest building blocks of electronics. 

Thanks for letting me share these thoughts. Feel free to disagree!

Best,
Carl

3 okt 2012 kl. 16.43 skrev phillip torrone:

> here are two efforts at adafruit we haven't announced yet (at least not anything big yet). when we do talk about this it will be to get the word out to new places and people in addition to our community.
> 
> open source coloring book for kids:
> http://adafruit.com/products/1000
> 
> circuit playground, a new "tv show" that teaches about open source and more. think of it as "elmo for engineering":
> http://adafruit.com/pt/ADABOTandFriends.jpg
> 
> this is just the very brief overview, but ya'll are all super smart i'm sure you get it. if anyone wants to help, have suggestions of folks to talk to or places we should spend a lot of efforts on this post up!
> 
> OSHWA folks if you believe it's a fit, please feel free to add it to some page on oshwa.org (coloring book that is…).
> 
> cheers,
> pt
> 
> On Oct 3, 2012, at 10:31 AM, Catarina Mota <catarina at openmaterials.org> wrote:
>> Sometimes even we, as familiar as we are with all this, get so focused on a single aspect/incident that we forget the big picture :)
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Andrew Stone <stone at toastedcircuits.com> wrote:
>> Sounds like a great idea!  It will also help us be better evangelists...
>> 
>> On Oct 3, 2012 9:24 AM, "Catarina Mota" <catarina at openmaterials.org> wrote:
>> At the OHS last week, Tom Igoe pointed out that, as long as we frame OSHW as being for artists and engineers, we'll fail to attract others such as social/political scholars, athletes, etc. There has also been, in my opinion, an increasing perception that OSHW is all about business/manufacturing and the other projects/initiatives tend to be relegated to the shadows.
>> 
>> So it would be interesting to have a section about the fields in which OSHW has applications and projects: education, natural sciences, medicine, materials science, social sciences, humanitarian aid, arts & crafts, environment, farming, space, transportation, manufacturing, etc.
>> 
>> We can all think of at least one project in each of these areas, but outside our community not many have an understanding of how broad OSHW is. I get asked a lot for examples of OSHW projects and I like to mention at least one for each category, so having a page with all this info would greatly help us explain what OSHW is and paint the big picture (that goes well beyond any single company or project).
>> 
>> What do you think?
>> 
>> Catarina
>> 
>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Nathan Seidle <nathan at sparkfun.com> wrote:
>> I second everything that's been said.
>> 
>> I like Catarina's idea - lead by example. Have a list of 4 or 5
>> examples of decent open source hardware projects that fits the basics
>> and best practices.
>> 
>> Adafruit has tons of good examples. Perhaps TV-B-Gone could be a good
>> one to mention: http://www.ladyada.net/make/tvbgone/
>> 
>> I hate to promote SparkFun but OpenLog is a reasonable example:
>> https://github.com/sparkfun/OpenLog/wiki
>> Documentation, firmware, design files, licenses
>> 
>> ColorHug looks neat: http://www.hughski.com/
>> 
>> I really want to not focus on electronics and PCBs so it would be
>> ideal to get non-electronic based OSHW on there - I just don't know of
>> any at the moment. Local Motors could be good but it's might be an
>> example that feels too big to be approachable. Biology? Fashion?
>> Mechanical?
>> 
>> --
>> Nathan Seidle
>> CEO, SparkFun Electronics Inc
>> Boulder, CO
>> Phone : 1-303-284-0979
>> Fax : 1-303-443-0048
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:23 PM, malcolm stanley
>> <a.malcolm.stanley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> some of these good ideas may be more appropriate for a Wiki;
>>> that would allow fair comment and contribution by members without placing
>>> the actual association in a position of judgement.
>>> also, I believe that if we do not crowdsource such knowledge we will all end
>>> up the poorer for it.
>>> _________________________________________
>>> malcolm stanley
>>> 
>>> google.voice:  215.821.6252
>>> Cell: 267.251.9479   <------------- new
>>> email: a.malcolm.stanley at gmail.com
>>> twitter / linkedin: amstanley
>>> Read my blog at http://soaringhorse.blogspot.com
>>> _________________________________________
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Alicia Gibb <pip at nycresistor.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> David has been instrumental to getting the existing FAQs up. Thank you
>>>> David!
>>>> 
>>>> I agree, it may be good to speak up about those unspoken rules. It seems
>>>> there is a fair bit of confusion around those.
>>>> 
>>>> The list of companies sounds cool, but we don't want to get into situation
>>>> where oshwa becomes a judge or gate keeper of what is and isn't, and rather
>>>> remains an educational source about open source hardware. But we like
>>>> celebration! I'll be celebrating several factoids about open source hardware
>>>> companies at the summit. We are also talking about a repo that could include
>>>> any and all oshw projects that people upload themselves.  Basically a
>>>> virtual library full of open source hardware goodness :) But I am off topic,
>>>> that's a project not a FAQ.
>>>> 
>>>> See you all at the summit!
>>>> 
>>>> Alicia
>>>> 
>>>> On Sep 24, 2012 3:44 PM, "Catarina Mota" <catarina at openmaterials.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> - A step by step of how to open source the right away: what files should
>>>>> be published, when they must be up by (shipping, not 6 months later), etc.
>>>>> This is one of the questions we get most frequently at OSHWA. People decide
>>>>> to open source something but don't necessarily know what it's required to
>>>>> comply with the definition.
>>>>> 
>>>>> - The unspoken rules of OSHW as described by Phil.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 5:37 PM, phillip torrone <pt at oreilly.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> a list of oshwa companies - elevate and celebrate oshw makers, a nice
>>>>>> list of companies would be really cool for folks to see this is a real
>>>>>> thing.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> cheers,
>>>>>> pt
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sep 24, 2012, at 5:01 PM, "David A. Mellis" <dam at mellis.org> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> A while back, Alicia asked me to help update the content on the OSHWA
>>>>>>> website and, in turn, I'd like to ask you for your help. In
>>>>>>> particular, I'm interested in expanding the content of the FAQ
>>>>>>> (http://www.oshwa.org/faq/) to make it more useful to those looking
>>>>>>> for information about open-source hardware and OSHWA.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What questions would you like to see answered in the FAQ?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> What information and advice would you offer to those interested in
>>>>>>> open-source hardware?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I know that this is a busy time - with the Open Hardware Summit and
>>>>>>> Maker Faire approaching - but I wanted to raise the question now so we
>>>>>>> can think about it during the summit. Suggestions welcome now or
>>>>>>> later.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> David
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> discuss mailing list
>>>>>>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>> 
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