5 ms·

From the article: "It’s pretty rare to go to GitHub, find high-quality hardware blocks that are available, and have the verification tools and everything you wo

From the article: "It’s pretty rare to go to GitHub, find high-quality hardware blocks that are available, and have the verification tools and everything you would need to trust that, even though that block has been altered by many different designers, it is in a state that is useable for your design." And so they are giving money to the likes of Intel, Nvidia, Synopsis, Xilinx? The reason why there is very little open source hardware is because it isn't in those company's interests. I won't hold my breath, I think this is just government appropriations and a lot of self-congratulating kick-off conferences that won't amount to anything useful. We're more likely to get open hardware the same way it always has started -- from the community, not from corporations. They will only adopt it when they have no other choice.

fsloth 8y ago
"They will only adopt it when they have no other choice" That's not why companies use and fund open source software. Open source electronics would probably be pretty much the same, added value being delivered from complete products (which are much more than just the chip) rather than just an agglomeration of components.
nine_k 8y ago
Once IBM constructed a personal computer. But, instead of patenting everything about it, they decided to open the architecture, so that extension cards and entire clones could be made. In a few years, IBM PC and its clones ate the market, and the resulting architecture kept eating it for like 20 years, pushing away both dedicated game machines, microcontrollers, and ultra-powerful servers. Only the advent of the smartphone slowed it down. I'd like to notice that this was not a grassroots community effort; this was a shrewd business strategy ("it's better to own 10% of a $1B market than 90% of a $20M market"), and for-profit companies, working for the the benefit of themselves and their customers. Not that community efforts are futile; they gave us [a long list of great things follows]. But the power of market forces, if harnessed right, should not be under-estimated.
- jws 8y ago
  …so that extension cards and entire clones could be made. IBM had no intention of allowing clones. They relied on their proprietary BIOS to give them control of the product even though they were licensing an OS from another party. This failed when the clean room reimplementations of IBM’s BIOS withstood IBM’s legal challenges and clones were born. IBM attempted to regain control of the platform by creating their own OS, OS/2, but ultimately failed and was driven from the market.
vinceguidry 8y ago
I wouldn't write off government investment just yet. It did, after all, give us the Internet. No community could have built that. Computer networks and hardware are both capital investment-heavy, long-term public benefits. The OSS analogue would be ham radio. Which is great and all, but... So much of our aerospace industry is based off of government initial R&D. If the government is going to do anything to help the tech space, this is it.
- stephenhuey 8y ago
  I think he's pointing out that the investment should go to a community-owned initiative, not companies who may take the funds and not take the initiative to heart.

fsloth 8y ago

"They will only adopt it when they have no other choice" That's not why companies use and fund open source software. Open source electronics would probably be pretty much the same, added value being delivered from complete products (which are much more than just the chip) rather than just an agglomeration of components.

nine_k 8y ago

Once IBM constructed a personal computer. But, instead of patenting everything about it, they decided to open the architecture, so that extension cards and entire clones could be made. In a few years, IBM PC and its clones ate the market, and the resulting architecture kept eating it for like 20 years, pushing away both dedicated game machines, microcontrollers, and ultra-powerful servers. Only the advent of the smartphone slowed it down. I'd like to notice that this was not a grassroots community effort; this was a shrewd business strategy ("it's better to own 10% of a $1B market than 90% of a $20M market"), and for-profit companies, working for the the benefit of themselves and their customers. Not that community efforts are futile; they gave us [a long list of great things follows]. But the power of market forces, if harnessed right, should not be under-estimated.

jws 8y ago
…so that extension cards and entire clones could be made. IBM had no intention of allowing clones. They relied on their proprietary BIOS to give them control of the product even though they were licensing an OS from another party. This failed when the clean room reimplementations of IBM’s BIOS withstood IBM’s legal challenges and clones were born. IBM attempted to regain control of the platform by creating their own OS, OS/2, but ultimately failed and was driven from the market.

vinceguidry 8y ago

I wouldn't write off government investment just yet. It did, after all, give us the Internet. No community could have built that. Computer networks and hardware are both capital investment-heavy, long-term public benefits. The OSS analogue would be ham radio. Which is great and all, but... So much of our aerospace industry is based off of government initial R&D. If the government is going to do anything to help the tech space, this is it.

stephenhuey 8y ago
I think he's pointing out that the investment should go to a community-owned initiative, not companies who may take the funds and not take the initiative to heart.