One known risk is improper component selection and it can ruin your "open" stance in the eyes of potential customers. For example, if you need 802.11 WiFi compo

One known risk is improper component selection and it can ruin your "open" stance in the eyes of potential customers. For example, if you need 802.11 WiFi component in your design, then picking the wrong one can result in being under an NDA, not having the freely available documentation needed by open source hacker to write and maintain drivers, and other "closed" nonsense from component vendors that prevents your openness. This issue is particularly true for most all graphics chips/cores. As for examples of open-hardware, there are many, but you'll need to search them out and read through the carefully to determine how "open" they really are. Like most buzzwords, "open" gets tossed around too loosely. Both finding and evaluating open-hardware vendors is time consuming. There are also variations of "open-hardware" in some places like China. Andrew (bunnie) Huang calls the Chinese variation “gongkai” (公开). http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3040 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3040