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

[Ineiev]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2022 at 11:19:46PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
> The other question I raised -- whether "the design of this piece of hardware"
> normally includes the designs of the chips in it as well as the design of
> its circuit board -- is important also.

I would say that the design is to include the design of the pieces
that are supposed to be produced by the manufacturer rather than
to be bought.

A better example is coils rather than chips: people may buy them
or make them themselves; when the designer intends to make the coil,
its design should be included (at least, the instructions on how to
make it); when it's to be bought, it's sufficient to specify its
features needed to get the right coil.

>   > The layouts for a device is typically harder to make than its
>   > schematics; the gerber files (technically, gerber + drill files)
>   > are made automatically from the layout in its source code form.
> 
> This suggests that a complete design for a board should include the
> layout.  But there is no crucial need to include the gerber + drill
> files, since you can generate them from the layout.

I believe so, it just could be convenient like including PDF and DVI
versions of the documentation written in Texinfo.

> (Is there free software to generate them?)

These files are typically generated by the same program that is used
to draw the layout (like "Export" in GIMP).

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