[Discuss] Possible abuse of the term "open source hardware"

[Windell H. Oskay]

Hey there, OSHW aficionados, 
  While browsing stackexchange today, I came across a banner ad for Pogo Linux, selling "[The Best Open Source Hardware] for your IT department."     Naturally I was interested, because, hey-- open source servers --neat!


I'm attempting to attach my screenshot of the banner ad to this e-mail.  If it doesn't work, I've cached it as well, here:
http://evilmadscientist.s3.amazonaws.com/scratch/pogo_linux_banner.png


Anyway, from their About page (http://www.pogolinux.com/about/) Pogo Linux sells "Hardware Built for Open-Source" -- rackmount servers that run linux and so forth.   But... so far as I can tell, they do not sell any actual OSHW-definition compliant products.   (Or do they, and just not indicate that clearly?)


On this page, they further state "Trust the experience of Pogo Linux for the best-supported Open-Source hardware in the industry" :
http://www.pogolinux.com/products/go/intel-xeon-servers.php?pm=vmw16883


I'm afraid that this is not a good thing.  To the extent that we care about the term "Open Source Hardware" having a clearly defined meaning-- one that can be used to hold up a false-advertising claim for those that abuse the term --I think that we should care about how the term is used, and do our best to prevent dilution of its meaning.





Cheers,
-Windell



Windell H. Oskay, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
175 San Lazaro Ave, STE 150 
Sunnyvale CA 94086
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/

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