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> most of the contributions it receives are from people who > are getting paid to make that contribution I can see this from a software perspective, but is th
by bArray 7y ago
> most of the contributions it receives are from people who
> are getting paid to make that contribution
I can see this from a software perspective, but is the same true for a tangible device aimed at a consumer?
> Why would someone contribute to your project or simply
> want to read its source?
My answer to this is:
1. There is a growing number of people who are concerned about security and I believe the general public is becoming more aware of such concerns.
2. The ability to customize a product or buy some modification and/or make that modification with relative ease and freedom.
3. Higher quality manufacturing and/or parts, or a unique feature offering not offered in mainstream products.
I'm sure there are other points too, depending on what the target consumer hardware is.
> Also, it's likely you would have to license other people's
> IPs and I have no idea if those licenses would forbid you
> from open sourcing your HW.
Possibly, again depending on the target device. I guess that "open hardware" in this case is "as-open-as-possible hardware".
- dyingkneepad 7y agoI see that you seem to be giving an answer for the "general case", while I was trying to think about the specifics of a certain piece of hardware. Regarding point 1, sure, open hardware is indeed a good addition to the privacy and security sectors. If you have hardware focused on those problems, open hardware will definitely be an advantage. Regarding point 2, the "ease" part in software actually means "really easy" since it only requires you to recompile and redistribute, but with hardware things will definitely become a little harder since it requires making the physical thing. You need an entire ecosystem for that. 3. None of that requires open hardware. Sure, having the specs allows you to verify the quality to some extent, but I'm assuming only very restricted sectors would care about that. That said, I would already be happy if the industry simply reverted the current shift of "move everything to closed firmware" that is happening :(. Open drivers with closed firmware is very disappointing.