Free Hardware - my USD$0.02

[Arthur Torrey]

While it seems to me that much of this discussion has gotten to the point of 
flagellating dead equines, I thought I'd put in a few comments...

1. I am more in favor of "Open Source Hardware" as a term for 'design 
available' hardware than any variation on "Free" (Libre might be OK) because of 
a key difference between hardware and Free Software, namely that "Bits are 
free, Atoms cost money"...  I can give endless copies of my (as in 'on my PC', 
not as developer) Free Software to others without any significant cost, and 
without losing my possession of it.  But while I can give away the SOURCE of my 
hardware, I can't give away the actual device w/o cost or losing my possession 
of it....  Thus the design can be free, but not the actual 'atoms' that make 
it.  I.e. I can give away endless copies of my brownie recipe, but my supply of 
edible brownies is limited and cost me money to make...

2. Particularly in re the MIDI controller, but otherwise relevant - the 
manufacturer of an electronic gizmo is under no obligation to provide drivers 
for every known O/S, and is unlikely to spend the money it costs to develop 
them unless convinced that it will result in enough increased sales to justify 
the cost.  (economics 101) A friend I know is the maintainer of "Andy's Ham 
Radio Linux" which is an Ubuntu based distro focused on Ham Radio software.  He 
says he has had very good success dealing with the manufacturers of various 
radio products that only had software for other O/S by offering to write 
GNU/Linux software for them if they would supply him with enough info on their 
API to do so (and explicitly NOT asking for any info about the device internals 
beyond that) He said this has let him develop GNU/Linux software for several 
products, as he could make the case that this didn't cost the company anything 
while making their product more valuable...

3. IANAL, but I remember a presentation at an OSHWA conference several years 
ago that pointed out that the world of 'I.P.' (and yes Richard, I know you 
don't like the term) is very convoluted, but that an important aspect is that 
physical hardware is NOT protected under Copyright law, it is under Patent Law. 
 However the design documentation IS under Copyright law...  As such it would 
be possible to put the design documents under a Copyleft (or looser) license, 
but NOT the actual hardware device.  Further that there was no real equivalent 
of a Copy-left (Patent-left???) mechanism under Patent law.  In addition, 
without a hardware patent it wasn't legally possible to prevent a Copylefted 
design from being made private since a design made based on the Copylefted 
design with some changes would be a different product.

4. A question was asked about designing hardware from a schematic - I'd suggest 
looking at the workflow in KiCAD (Free software electronic design package) 
basically it starts with making a schematic (or importing in a KiCAD supported 
format).  Then you assign each component a "footprint" based on the physical 
dimensions of the actual part that will be used, and the manufacturer specs on 
required solder pad dimensions, heat sinks, etc.  The next step is to put all 
the footprints on the virtual PC board.  They will have an accompanying 
'rats-nest' of lines connecting all the parts as described in the schematic.  
Then you need to shuffle the parts around so that you can 'route' the rats-nest 
of lines so that they can be converted in to traces on the board, meaning they 
can't intersect unless the schematic calls for it, and meeting all the design 
requirements for things like current capacity, spacing, preventing electrical 
interference and all the other electrical engineering considerations that make 
the difference between theoretical parts and real ones...  This is probably the 
hardest part...  After your have a board layout, you feed it into a final 
process that generates all the Gerber files needed to actually make the 
physical board...

5. Not a lot has been made about the fact that while the detailed internal 
designs of chips is generally not available, the datasheet on ANY chip will 
have all the details needed to use it in a design, including functional block 
diagrams, electrical specs, timing and similar data, and so on...  If it is a 
programmable or processing (CPU) it will have the details about the commands / 
code that it 'understands' etc.  It would not be possible to use a chip in a 
design without this information.  Given the current real-world difficulties of 
making home-brew chips, there isn't a lot of point in having the detailed chip 
internal data as it isn't practically useful...  

6. It is worth pointing out that much (most?) physical hardware does NOT 
contain CPU's or other user programmable parts. (or even any sort of electronic 
/ electrical bits) Often this hardware would be easier for user production....  
Open source design concepts apply to this sort of hardware just as much (if not 
more so) than any electronic stuff.

7. The FSF has recently started pushing the idea of the 'Freedom Ladder' w/ 
100% proprietary software at one end and "RMS level" refusal to use anything 
non-Free at the other...  A similar concept could easily be applied to hardware 
designs - how much info do they provide?  It seems that this sort of gradient 
approach is not unreasonable and provides a path to urge manufacturers of goods 
to follow as far as they feel comfortable...

ART

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Arthur Torrey - <arthur_torrey@comcast.net>
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