Ask HN: Why hasn't there been open source hardware?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9748158

by werber • 11 years ago

4 9 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Why hasn't there been a viable open source hardware project?

mallin• 11 years ago

Well, there is http://www.ohwr.org/

werber• 11 years ago

no, when I said viable, I meant, buy on Amazon. cheap.

Mz• 11 years ago

Probably because, for all that we complain endlessly about the evils of capitalism, if someone isn't making enough money off of it, there is no motivation to make it available.

twunde2• 11 years ago

Additionally there is http://www.opencompute.org/, which was initially created by facebook. I also think arduino may have some open hardware as well.

As for why they're rarer? Hardware is expensive, has a smaller margin of error and has had good vendors for a long time. Few companies build their own hardware, and many that do consider it a competitive advantage (Google certainly does)

twunde2• 11 years ago

Better yet: https://www.tindie.com/

dragonwriter• 11 years ago

Why hasn't there been a viable open source hardware project?

Because hardware isn't like software, its got longer cycle times, higher capital investments to work with it, etc., which means:

(1) You can't get lots of contributors, (2) Even once the design's done, you've got to get someone to build it -- which takes a substantial capital investment, and the people making those investments are more able to recoup them when there is a barrier keeping other people out from identical replacements, which doesn't exist with open source.

If automated manufacturing ever gets to the point where a fabricating device that takes in cheap raw materials and prints out computers is something that is no further out of reach that a decent development PC is now -- or even, was in the 1990s -- then open source hardware will be a lot more common.

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

There is. http://www.oshwa.org/

There are quite a few synthesizer projects that are totally open. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/open-source-hardware-synths/ lists 5, I think this one is OS too (or is that just the firmware? I forget) http://www.sonic-potions.com/lxr

Also look around on Hackaday and related sites. There's a lot of them in the synth community because audio nerds are sort of obsessive and like tinkering, plus synthesizers are relatively easy to build. I think the first of these projects was the X0Xbox 303 clone, though I don't know if that was 'officially' under oshwa.

daviross• 11 years ago

http://blink1.thingm.com/ Blink(1) fits your requirements.

chrisBob• 11 years ago

By hardware do you mean open at the chip level? Most of the stuff at Sparkfun is open.

Ask HN: Why hasn't there been open source hardware?

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