Not "open source" hardware, "free design" hardware

[Richard Stallman]

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  > I agree that this is a problem, but as presented FSF doesn't enable us
  > to use other terms as it's too software-oriented so this is the best we
  > can do even when the hardware is released under GPLv3.

I don't believe that is true.

I suspect that the term "open source hardware" is incoherent.
If the board circuit is published under a free license, but the chip
designes are not, is that hardware "open source"?  If so, the term
is so weak that using it is not helpful.

I suggest the term "free-design hardware"
to mean hardware made from free designs.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)