[Discuss] Proposal: Open Source Hardware Score/Index

Nancy Ouyang nancy.ouyang at gmail.com
Fri Feb 27 19:45:01 UTC 2015 

Hey RJ / Jeff / possibly other interested folks,
I've been toying with the idea of making isitactuallyopensource.info which
gives small projects an automatic 0--5star review for about a month now.
For open source software, actually, but could easily be expanded/forked to
cover OSHW.

Maybe it'd be a stopgap until people adopt contributors.json (I'm not sure
that's the ideal name, it seems broader in scope than 'credits', for me
it'd be more like YesThisIsActuallyOpenSource.json) -- it was going to be
some auto-evaluation of how quickly a bot can find your source and license,
and maybe allow users/authors to fill in anything my crappy bot failed at
finding. *

Anyway, I was going to code up a prototype webapp this weekend, if either
of you are free and around Union Sq. this weekend.

Thanks,
--Nancy


* I'm told this is also somewhat of a problem in science / scientific
articles, where people will claim code is open-source and never get around
to actually posting it online (that's fine if you're too busy, just don't
claim it's open source). The ratings I imagine would be humorously like
Michelin's restaurant rating:

5: public domain or copyleft or something
4:
3:
2:
1: obscurely "open-source" (source code printed and buried under a rock in
Siberia)
0: closed-source

It's somewhat tied to the reproducibility movement, since if your software
has undocumented dependencies, it kind of defeats the purpose, but I
haven't thought too much beyond this.


~~~
narwhaledu.com, educational robots <http://gfycat.com/ExcitableLeanAkitainu>
 [[<(._.)>]] my personal blog <http://www.orangenarwhals.com>,
orangenarwhals
arvados.org (open source software for provenance, reproducing, and scaling
your analyses)

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 12:38 PM, David A. Mellis <dmellis at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that it’s important to provide consistent guidelines and
> standards, and make them as clear and easy to follow / evaluate as
> possible. And I think the OSHW definition is a good standard to start with
> (although we may want to tweak / improve it at some point if necessary).
> Again, any suggestions on how to better communicate the definition (both to
> hardware makers and to users) is welcome.
>
> I’d be curious to hear other people’s opinion on establishing other
> standards to complement the OSHW definition. What do you all think about
> trying to define a partially open standard or a more pure OSHW standard?
>
> David
>
> On Feb 27, 2015, at 12:34 PM, Mario Gómez <mxgxw.alpha at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi David!
>
> Thanks for your comments,
>
> At the begining I was thinking at the score as a measure of the level of
> compliance with the definition and not a black and white classification.
> However in the way the OSHW definition is redacted you can practically
> guess which situations can directly prevent a project of being "pure OSHW"
> and that's what I tried to include in the questions.
>
> However I consider that the score is not the the most important thing,
> it's the way that the score gives you insightful recommendations and a
> system that allows crowd-validate the compliance.
>
> The other thing that I really did wanted with the score is that it could
> serve for certification purposes. For example, you cannot state "my
> bussiness complies 99.99% with the ISO 9001 requirements", I mean you can
> say it but no one is going to take you seriously. And to be sincere, for
> OSHW the line of what-is and what-not must be drawn somewhere. I would
> think that for many shady manufacturers it's really good that there isn't
> any clear line drawn yet because they can market their products as Open
> Source Hardware without following the spirit of the OSHW definition.
>
> For the levels personally I think they add more confusion to the issue of
> what is and not open source hardware, however they can be helpfull to guide
> the designers about what they need to do if they (ever) want to release
> their designs as OSHW.
>
> My point is: If we, as members of the OSHWA do not draw a line somewhere
> and use some tool that allow us to do it in a consistent, replicable and
> transparent way... Then someone else is going to do it and there is a risk
> that they draw the line in a place where there is no true intent of
> following with the "Open Source Hardware" philosophy that the OSWHA tries
> to promote.
>
> Regards,
> Mario.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 11:05 AM, David A. Mellis <dmellis at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> To me, it’s confusing for the required criteria to yield a score, if only
>> a perfect score counts as OSHW. That is, a naive reader might think that
>> 13/15 or 14/15 is a good score, even though we wouldn’t consider the
>> project OSHW. To me, it seems like we’re better off using a checklist
>> approach instead, i.e. these are all the things you have to do to be
>> considered OSHW. OSHWA has some things like that already:
>>
>> http://www.oshwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/oshwchecklist.pdf
>> http://www.oshwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/OSHW-May-and-Must.pdf
>>
>> Although suggestions are always welcome.
>>
>> A related approach I’d love feedback on is whether there is a
>> well-defined and agreed on set of practices that could constitute either a
>> weaker or stronger standard than our current OSHW definition.
>>
>> For example, can we imagine trying to establish a meaning of “partially
>> open” hardware — e.g. hardware for which design files are released but
>> under a more restrictive license than OSHW; hardware for which some files
>> (like schematic PDFs) are released but not others (like the actual design
>> files). This is still more open than many pieces of hardware, so it might
>> be worth trying to recognize these efforts, even if they’re not fully OSHW.
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> In the other direction, could we imagine something like a “pure
>> open-source hardware” standard, e.g. hardware which is designed using
>> open-source software tools, and which only uses, say, components that are
>> standard / widely available / publicly documented?
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Feb 25, 2015, at 7:12 AM, Mario Gómez <mxgxw.alpha at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> That's the idea of the proposed score, there is a set of questions that
>> evaluate compliance against the OSHW definition. Your project must meet the
>> required score 15/15 to be considered OSHW.
>>
>> The reason why is a score instead a simple evaluation of compliance is
>> because I was thinking that it also must work as a tool for the begginer
>> that want to develop OSHW and a guide of which changes are needed to be
>> compliant. Currently in the way the score is designed you must have 15 of
>> 15 points of compliance to be considered OSHW if you doesn't meet all of it
>> well... then your project simply isn't OSHW. However you'll know after the
>> evaluation how far is your project of getting the goal, it's not the same
>> to get a score of 1 than a score of 14. The system later would underline
>> the things that you  failed to comply and (hopefuly) give you a guide or
>> ideas about what to do.
>>
>> After the 15 "required" points there are 7 aditional points that evaluate
>> good practices. The idea of including this in the calculation of the score
>> is because in some way is easy to comply with the definition but that
>> doesn't guarantee that you are following good practices. Then again if
>> you've got the 15 required points the extra points help you to know if you
>> are following the best practices and giving added value to your project
>> generating a good and accesible documentation.
>>
>> Also I think that the definition is pretty clear of what things prevent a
>> project to be considered OSHW and the questions of the score were
>> elaborated that way, following the definition.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Mario.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 1:55 AM, Ben Gray <ben at phenoptix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Although I like the idea of an index, it seems to be enough of a problem
>>> (even on this list) to recognise what constitutes Open Source Hardware or
>>> not. I feel that adding an index or score could muddy the waters even more.
>>> However it could add to understanding if the compliance elements are
>>> stressed and failure underlined rather than a low score given.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Best Regards
>>>
>>> Ben Gray - Director
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> www.phenoptix.com
>>> twitter.com/phenoptix
>>> plus.google.com/+phenoptix
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 25 February 2015 at 07:16, Jeffrey Warren <jeff at publiclab.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So one thing I like about the contrib.json file is that it'd have a BOM
>>>> requirement with potentially optional things like prices, links for where
>>>> to buy materials, etc.
>>>>
>>>> I had some ideas (talking with RJ Steinert
>>>> <http://publiclab.org/profile/rjstatic> of Farm Hack) about how a more
>>>> Bower- or NPM-style utility could parse such files... these are just
>>>> roughly sketched out ideas -- say we called it "newt":
>>>>
>>>>    - newt init -- would run a text-based questionnaire to generate
>>>>    contrib.json file
>>>>    - newt compile bom -- aggregate/merge BOMs of nested projects
>>>>    - newt compile bom <string> -- aggregate/merge BOMs with links
>>>>    matching provided string like "digikey.com"
>>>>    - newt compile price <int> -- calculate unit price for int units
>>>>    - newt compile contributors -- compile contributors of nested
>>>>    projects
>>>>    - newt register -- makes searchable, tests for presence of req'd
>>>>    docs, clones repos or zips
>>>>
>>>> Updated my post in the comments here, where there's also been some
>>>> discussion about versioning:
>>>> http://publiclab.org/notes/warren/02-24-2015/standardizing-open-source-hardware-publication-practices-with-contributors-json#c11215
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 7:35 PM, Roy Nielsen <amrset at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> One possibility would be to require a "BOM" or bill of materials that
>>>>> is required for an OSHWA certified design.  Perhaps something like the
>>>>> following for an embedded board:
>>>>>
>>>>> * contributors.jason
>>>>> * Project BOM - in the part descriptions - includes whether a part is
>>>>> open source or closed source
>>>>>                           (ie processors, complex chips, etc)
>>>>> * Schematics list - including descriptions & if the schematics are
>>>>> modifiable (ie, not pdf)
>>>>> * License
>>>>> * Hardware Design Documentation
>>>>> * Software Design Documentation & License (if applicable, like
>>>>> firmware)
>>>>> * Connectors - if they are open design/interface
>>>>>
>>>>> anything else?
>>>>>
>>>>> Score could possibly be based on what of the above is available . .
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> -Roy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 4:15 PM, Pablo Kulbaba <pablokulbaba at gmail.com
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  On the validation via a community or a specific group of people,
>>>>>> maybe the initial open community can provide a seedstock to raise educated
>>>>>> people to form a later trusted group of people that gives an ulterior
>>>>>> certification.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> PD: Had to search JSON.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 24/02/2015 08:00 p.m., Mario Gómez wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  @jeff:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That's great! It can even work both ways: If you already have a JSON
>>>>>> you can provide the URL to automatically calculate the indicator for your
>>>>>> project and vice versa: if you complete the questionnaire it could
>>>>>> automatically generate the JSON file that you can include in your project
>>>>>> as you propose that would be easy to do.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Sadly I'm a little busy this week but let me see if I can program a
>>>>>> functional prototype so we can experiment how it could work for the next
>>>>>> month. (I would not mind if someone else wants to help)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> @Javier:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  I personally like the idea of the community, because if the process
>>>>>> is straight forward, verifiable and transparent what matters is the result
>>>>>> of the evaluation system and not the person/group of persons doing the
>>>>>> evaluation. This is assuming that the evaluation system provides means to
>>>>>> minimize/prevent abuses (That's why I consider important to also
>>>>>> implementing a meta-evaluation system).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However... being certified from a trusted group of people it's really
>>>>>> important and I think that the OSHWA could be an appropriate group to do
>>>>>> that. But let's hear more opinions, I think that it's possible to build
>>>>>> something simple that helps people to follow the OSHW philosophy in their
>>>>>> projects.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Mario.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Jeffrey Warren <jeff at publiclab.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I really like this idea!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Somewhat related is this idea from chatting with Alicia Gibb a few
>>>>>>> months ago, of a contributors.json file which would fulfill (with links,
>>>>>>> short descriptions, etc) all the terms of the OSH definition.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  I finally typed up the idea and our sample format here:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://publiclab.org/notes/warren/02-24-2015/standardizing-open-source-hardware-publication-practices-with-contributors-json
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Love to hear input. Perhaps the questionnaire could generate such
>>>>>>> a file. At Public Lab, it'd be interesting for the file to be
>>>>>>> auto-generated from our tool wiki pages. The nice part about it is that
>>>>>>> it's not specifying a way of browsing or aggregating projects (as other
>>>>>>> folks are exploring that space) but specifies a standard way to make the
>>>>>>> relevant/required information available for such projects to
>>>>>>> scrape/consume. Also, it's easy enough to write by hand and include in a
>>>>>>> github repository.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Best,
>>>>>>> Jeff
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Javier Serrano <
>>>>>>> Javier.Serrano at cern.ch> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> discuss mailing list
>>>>>>>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>>>>>>>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> discuss mailing listdiscuss at lists.oshwa.orghttp://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> PabloK
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>
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