Open Source Hardware: What It Means and Why It Matters?
You’ve heard of open source software. But what about open source hardware? Simply put, open source hardware is a term that refers to any type of device whose hardware specifications are fully documented or otherwise available .The rapid spread of COVID-19 has created an urgent demand for critical items including clinical care equipment and protective personal equipment. Open source design of hardware products is an emerging phenomenon that takes more and more importance today’s in the society. The failure of traditional industry to meet this demand has led to a huge response from the maker community, who are rapidly mobilizing to produce Open Source Hardware (OSH) solutions. As organizations come to expect all software source code to be open in order to maximize interoperability, it’s only natural for them to think the same way about hardware. Lets understand about open source hardware better! Click here
WHY DOES IT MATTER???
The software-defined revolution is likely to increase demand for open source hardware. That’s because software-defined solutions abstract functions like networking and storage infrastructure from the underlying devices, making hardware itself less valuable. Organizations will not need expensive, proprietary network switches or storage arrays when such hardware cannot do anything that can’t be done in software alone. Open hardware solutions will become more valuable not only because they are likely to be inexpensive, but also because open specifications maximize the ability of programmers to take advantage of hardware features when optimizing software-defined solutions. For instance, Open hardware will also matter on the IoT, for two main reasons. The first involves security and privacy. While worries about snooping webcams on PCs may be overblown, demands for privacy assurances will reach new magnitudes when IoT devices surround consumers and collect all sorts of personal information. Companies that build IoT solutions based on open hardware will be able to make privacy promises that others can’t. Open hardware will also help to drive IoT adoption by creating a foundation for building low-cost, portable IoT solutions. In other words, open hardware platforms, like Arduino, will do for IoT what open source software platforms, like Linux and Apache, did for the Web by providing a convenient, accessible, cost-efficient basis on which to deploy products in a new ecosystem.
BOTTLENECKS IN OSH
In the case of OSH development, the impossibility to copy the developed object at will slows down the speed of development while at the same time raising costs. The need for physical working space and face–to–face contacts was mentioned, above, and while communication can to an extent be mediated by computer networks, this aspect also adds costs for the project
The differences between OSS and OSH development may be categorized in different ways. Real-world physical constraints are crucial. However, they are often overlooked when one concentrates on the successes of the OSS model and considers only the design part of OSH development. The design part can be digitalized so that in OSH design the spatial and temporal friction can be overcome. With OSH production, the friction reappears. In OSS development, a virtually unlimited number of developers can collaborate on an identical piece of code, while in OSH production the number of developers is limited by access to physical spaces and physical objects. Copying the physical objects takes considerable time and resources, which points to economical differences. In OSH, the raw material and the tools used are not abundant but scarce. The end product can not, typically, be used as raw material for a new development cycle, but may have to be discarded. As only the digitalized designs are commons, while the raw materials, tools, and end products are not.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR OPEN HARDWARE
Be More Intentional About Diversifying Open Source Hardware OSHWA has taken significant steps to diversify the open-source hardware community through the structure of the Open Hardware. In addition to striving toward a diversity of creators, the open-source hardware community will continue to work to diversify how it defines hardware itself. Although there are important exceptions, today’s open-source hardware skews toward electronics.
Expand Academic Pathways The open-source hardware community will work to make it easier for academic communities to track and recognize open contributions from their peers to the open-source hardware community
Openness Requirements in Grantmaking The open access movement has been incredibly successful in building openness requirements into major grants. Today many grantmakers require research papers to be licensed under Creative Commons licenses and data to be freely available to others
Create Model Repositories Open source hardware is already broad enough to make it a challenge to identify one “right” way to structure a project. Nonetheless, there are steps that the community can take to make it easier for newcomers to get started in open source hardware.
Develop Open Components One of the strengths of open-source software is that any given open-source software project is created from building blocks made up of other open-source software components. That is rarely the case with today’s open-source hardware. While the hardware itself may be open, it is usually built from proprietary — although commonly available — components
So, from whichever perspective that you look at it, Open Source software/hardware is important. It helps people, it improves technology, and last but not least, it provides some humanitarian benefits and also increases the startup culture which could cut down costs to a larger extend. All it takes is that more people use it because they are the lifeblood of Open Source.
