[Discuss] OSHW Best Practices / Layers of Openness

[Tom Igoe]

Whoops, sent this from the wrrong mailing address and it bounced.


Disclaimer: I deliberately picked some of what I consider to be the best and most useful products I've used for this example. This is not a critique of the folks who make them, it is a critique of the definition and its feasibility in practice.

It's also no coincidence that all of these are radio products.  Radio, like magnetic toys, is heavily regulated, and non-compliance creates larger liability problems than the rest of the electronics world. So we may have to start looking for ways to open upliability and regulatory compliance as well.

On Feb 28, 2013, at 7:16 AM, Tom Igoe wrote:

> 
> On Feb 27, 2013, at 12:41 PM, Michael Shiloh wrote:
> 
>> 1) The overall guideline might be "can someone reproduce this project to a reasonable degree (e.g. functionally the same, if perhaps the case is not identical) with the information provided?
> 
> 
> So, let's pick a few specific examples, all of which think highly of, and use myself (admitted bias on the third). But I struggle with defining them as entirely open:
> 
> https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11378
> 
> The major piece of hardware on this board is a proprietary module from Roving Networks.  Though SparkFun's support schematic is clearly open, the module that makes this functional is not, nor is it reprogrammable. The API for it is open, though. Is this OSHW?  What's the replacement part that could drop into this board and make it work, with minor modifications?
> 
> http://adafruit.com/products/746
> 
> Similarly, the major piece of hardware (the GPS radio) is proprietary, even though Adafruit's support schematic is clearly open. What's the drop in part (note: Adafruit hasn't put the OSHWA logo on here, so it's possible they don't claim this is open)
> 
> http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoWiFiShield
> 
> The WiFi radio on this board is proprietary, even though the support processor and its firmware and board schematics are open. This is perhaps a more complex board than the other two, but I'm not sure that complexity changes things much. Or does it?
> 
> 
> Contrast those three with this:
> 
> http://logos-electro.com/zigduino/
> 
> This is perhaps closer to the definition than the others, in that the firmware for the radio module *is* open. 
> 
> My question is: do we need to differentiate between these in terms of their openness,or not?  There are plenty of other examples I could pull. I know my work would suffer if I decided not to use these parts, they're all staples in my work. And I'm not an open source hardware absolutist, I use plenty of proprietary hardware.  But I'm genuinely not sure where the line is with some of the products we make and use every day.
> 
> t.
> 
> 
> 

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