[Discuss] Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your Freedom hardware product certification"

[Roy Nielsen]

On 1/7/2015 4:07 PM, Matt Maier wrote:
> "But maybe a decentralized, peer-review audit-like system could be 
> viable, run by the OSH community for the OSH community on a voluntary 
> basis.     If there would be a simple to use infrastructure where you 
> could have checked/looked over one of your designs by other fellow OSH 
> designers (and you would check theirs, ...) and they     could give 
> you feedback on what things are missing, could be improved for your 
> design to meet the OSH definition"
>
> Isn't that just, you know, what normally happens? What would that add 
> over the normal interest and review and discussion that happens on any 
> project? How would disagreements be handled?
>
> I think the point of a "certification" would be for one unambiguous 
> standard to be maintained to benchmark against. Something with a 
> gatekeeper that guarantees consistency.

I guess my concern would be to make sure the certification would be 
unbiased, impartial and a community agreed upon standard.

Regards,
-Roy

> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 2:08 PM, Hanspeter Portner 
> <dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch <mailto:dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch>> 
> wrote:
>
>     On 06.01.2015 13:31, Roy Nielsen wrote:
>     > It would be great to have a certification that certifies that the
>     _hardware_design_ is also open source.
>
>     I am a bit sceptical about any central authority who manages
>     certification (e.g. I doubt that as many organic food is produced
>     as is labeled with a certificate and sold in stores...).
>
>     But maybe a decentralized, peer-review audit-like system could be
>     viable, run by the OSH community for the OSH community on a
>     voluntary basis.
>     If there would be a simple to use infrastructure where you could
>     have checked/looked over one of your designs by other fellow OSH
>     designers (and you would check theirs, ...) and they
>     could give you feedback on what things are missing, could be
>     improved for your design to meet the OSH definition...
>     (I'm not thinking about feedback whether your design is any good,
>     just whether it meets the OSH definition)
>
>     >
>     > If the platform is closed source and the firmware is open source
>     is that a win for open source?  I say only partially.  It's a nice
>     first step, but to be fully open source, the _hardware_design_
>     must also be open source.
>     >
>     > What do you think?
>
>     Yes, there seem to be different conceptual levels for which
>     freedom may be granted:
>     1. free software
>     2. free access to the free software
>     3. free hardware design
>     4. free chip design
>
>     I'm looking forward to the day where we reach 4, this looks
>     promising: http://www.lowrisc.org/
>
>     > Regards,
>     > -Roy
>     >
>     > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 3:28 AM, Hanspeter Portner
>     <dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch
>     <mailto:dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch>
>     <mailto:dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch>
>     <mailto:dev at open-music-kontrollers.ch>> wrote:
>     >
>     >
>>     I just stumbled across the "Respects Your Freedom hardware product
>>     certification" [1] by the Free Software Foundation.
>>     I was agnostic about that until now. I thought I would post it
>>     here if
>>     somebody should be interested.
>>
>>     I think it is an interesting idea to actually have someone
>>     (independent,
>>     non-profit) check whether your hardware/firmware is
>>     free (or falsly claimed to be...).
>>
>>     Compared to the OSH definition [4], it does not seem to define any
>>     criteria for the hardware design to be open, but puts its focus
>>     on shipped firmware/software. The latter (in contrast to the OSH
>>     definition) must be free to pass the certification criteria [2].
>>
>>     There is already some certified hardware out there [3].
>>
>>     [1] http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom
>>     [2] http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria
>>     [3] http://ryf.fsf.org/
>>     [4] http://www.oshwa.org/definition/
>>
>>     Hanspeter
>
>
>
>
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