Writings on Open Source Hardware

Local Pages

• What is open source hardware?: a short attempt at a definition written before Open Collector first appeared
• Open Hardware or Free Hardware?: an attempt to define some terms
• Open Hardware and Free Software: a comparison of the reasons behind open hardware and the free software movement
• Free Hardware Design - Past, Present, Future: talk given at the first Oekonux conference, May 2001.
• A much nicer version of the same paper, with pictures (in Russian) in two parts:
  • Part 1
  • Part 2

Other Writings

• Richard Stallman on 'Free Hardware'
• The economics of Free Core development, by David Kessner
• Open-source IP could ignite system-on-chip era by David Kessner
• Business Models for Open Source Hardware Design by Gregory Pomerantz
• Free chips for all - The status of open hardware designs, by Jamil Khatib
• The F-CPU Project: "Freedom for the devices : Philosophy, Dogma or Religion ?" - a talk given at the first Oekonux Conference by Yann Guidon ('whygee').
• Extending the Freedoms of Free and Open Information, by Carl Vilbrandt, designer of the GnuBook. Discusses the social, ecological, and economic framework for free software and hardware design, illustrated by the example of a computer designed to minimize manufacturing costs and parts required.
• A mildly negative view of open-source hardware, by Jim Turley for Embedded Systems Programming magazine.
• A series of articles on Free Hardware Design in Czech:
  • Hardware se svobodny'm designem I - Introduction
  • Hardware se svobodny'm designem II - Interview with Whygee and Michael Riepe of Freedom-CPU
  • Hardware se svobodny'm designem III. - Conclusion
• A paper from OMNE on bazaar-style design of Nano and Micro manufacturing equipment
[English, 2001]
• The OSCar Project - not an electronic design, but a car! (the project has come back to life (2007)) [English]
• Knackt die Black Box Computer - article on free hardware design [German, 2003].
• Hardware: Funktionsweise, Selbstbau, programmierbare Logik, Open Source: talk by Neil Franklin at the LUGCamp 2003 (partly an introduction to programmable logic, partly a discussion of free hardware design) [German, 2003]
• Press release from Silicore explaining the business justifications for moving to open source cores
• Hardware Libre, Tecnologia, y derechos discussion of free hardware design in Libertonia [Spanish, 2003]
• Hardware libre: clasificación y desarrollo de hardware reconfiurable en entornos GNU/Linux by Ivan González, Juan González, Francisco mez-Arribas [Spanish, 2003]
• How to use free software in FPGA embedded designs - article written for Xilinx by Andrei Filippov of Elphel, Inc. [English, 2003]
• Le Hardware Open-Source, article in Presence-PC February 2004 by Benoit Dupont [French, 2004])
• Open Hardware Ain't Easy: Whygee and Michael Riepe talk about the Freedom CPU in Dr Dobbs [English, 2004]
• Ukroshcheneye zheleznovo pingvina - another article by Andrei Filippov [Russian, 2004]
• Wiki discussion of an idea to boot-strap free hardware design through self-build PCB routers.
• Introduction to open-source hardware development in EEDesign by Mohammed Salem and Jamil Khatib of Handasa Arabia. [English, 2004]
• Role of NGOs in use and design of freesoftware, in spite of its title largely about free hardware design.
• InvestigaciÃn³ realizada por el Ing. Diego Javier Brengi al solicitarse de la INTI, Argentina [Spanish, 2007]