[Discuss] Proposal: Open Source Hardware Score/Index

[Javier Serrano]

Mario, I think this is a great idea. I see this can play a role in the
solution to one of the biggest problems of OSHW: how to make sure
developers have more incentives to publish their work. Economic
incentives in particular. An OSHW label could give (more) prestige to
developers who hold it and induce purchaser-driven growth of OSHW. We
are already seeing that prestige is a big element in the success of OSHW
companies. A well advertised and supported label or mark could enlarge
the population of savvy customers.

On 02/24/2015 05:58 PM, Mario Gómez wrote:
> The idea is that the community validates if you are telling the  truth.
> To prevent abuse a meta-validation system could be implemented were you
> can "evaluate the evaluators" to see if their are being fair on their
> evaluations.

One alternative is to entrust the OSHWA with that role. "Community" is a
vague term. If I have to trust someone on whether a piece of software is
free software I will trust the FSF over the "community" any day. One way
of doing it would be through a creative use of marks or labels, in the
vein of what OHANDA [1] proposes. See also the work of the Wikimedia
Foundation [2] in this regard. In this scenario, developers have a
natural incentive to not misuse the mark, because they can be sued with
all the arsenal of trademark law if they do.

Cheers,

Javier

[1] http://www.ohanda.org/
[2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy