Free software has many benefits: you can get more secure software, faster updates, lots of tutorials and, definitely, a new way of making software and software that builds communities. From this, the next logical step was Open Hardware.

Making Open Hardware possible

Free software is based in four main freedoms:

• freedom to execute programs
• freedom to access source code
• freedom to distribute copies
• freedom to improve and release that source code

Now, there are people talking about Open Hardware… Open Hardware? Is it a misspelling? Well, active projects like Arduino and SquidBee demonstrate that Open Hardware is a real and alive concept. But, what do these words mean exactly? Can you just use free software concepts and apply them to hardware?

First of all, it’s important to understand that software and hardware belong to separate worlds. While software matters are usually ruled by copyright, hardware must be protected by patents. According to The U.S and European Copyright Office, copyright is a form of protection (…) granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture, published or unpublished. It lasts 50-70 years after author’s death, depending on specific country laws. On the other side, everyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent.

There are also differences between the US, European and Japanese Patent Offices. The USPTO is the only one which is based on a first-to-invent system (instead of a first-to-file), meaning that a patent is granted to the person who first conceived and practiced the invention, rather than to the person who first filed the invention with authorities. There are some other differences, but the most important one in our case is that software patents are allowed in the US but not in Europe.

It would be difficult to explain how Open Hardware was born. Someone basically thought that an open computer was necessary in order to develop better drivers and write completely architecture adapted programs (http://www.openoem.com). In fact, there is an initiative called Open Hardware Certification program which (from the web site) is a self-certification program for hardware manufacturers. By certifying a hardware device as Open, the manufacturer makes a set of promises about the availability of documentation in order to program the device-driver interface of a specific hardware device. Enough documentation for the device must be available for a competent systems programmer to write a device-driver.

Figure 1: sharing free software

From another more philosophical point of view, you can find a free design for an active RFID device OpenBeacon, Open Hardware phones like TuxPhone and even an Open Hardware car called Oscar. All these projects will be released according to copyleft principles.

More and more Open Hardware projects can be discovered in Open Circuits, which provides a wiki to upload all kinds of useful information. These are just some examples which claim to be Open Hardware, although none of them define what that means.

Figure 2: sharing open hardware

Hardware is composed of several components e.g. firmware, schematics, circuit and layout diagrams, parts lists. Which components must be released to label a project as Open Hardware? If you look in depth at some Open Hardware projects you will find the Linksys router from WRT54G series. Its firmware has been released under GPL license, and the 3D printer RepRap has released most of its components. The Chumby project is made with free software and provides a HDK (hardware developer kit) with an special license that explains the terms under you can modify your chumby, but warns that by doing so you will lose any warranty.

Many projects claim to be Open Hardware, although none of them define what that exactly means

The challenges of releasing hardware

One of the goals of free software is that it can be accessed by everyone; but hardware has unavoidable costs for components and manufacturing. That’s why Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation founder, said that getting Open Hardware wasn’t as important as getting free software, since the hardware’s copy and distribution process was more complicated.