From P2P Foundation

Free Hardware Design

Definition

1.

Definition by Graham Seaman, advocate of Open Hardware, from an article on the history, present and future of 'free hardware design'. [1]

"Free Design Practice

• Designs are owned by the people who create them. Ownership is protected by copyright law only. The intention is to make designs as widely available as possible.

• There is every incentive to build on older designs, to collaborate with as wide a spread of people as possible, and to make the designs widely known. NGOs in developing countries are not locked out, but encouraged to reuse designs.

• Design software is free software, so that anyone who wishes to can participate.

• Designs are driven by the wishes of their creators. The end goal can be whatever they wish.

• Users of the end product can not only know how it works, but are encouraged to create improvements or modify it for their own purposes."

(http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html)

2.

Christoph Beaupoil:

"What makes some blueprints in public domain a Free Hardware project?

1. A community of developers and users

2. Effective medium for information sharing

3. Lowest possible effort to convert the design to useful hardware

4. Low cost of imperfect builds

5. A license granting

        1. Freely available Design
        2. Freedom to modify
        3. Free redistribution"

(http://www.oekonux-conference.org/documentation/texts/)

More Information

Free Hardware Design - Past, Present, Future, at http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/freedesign.html

Richard Stallman, on Free Hardware, at http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-22-005-05-NW-LF

Business Models for Open Source hardware design, at http://pages.nyu.edu/~gmp216/papers/bmfosh-1.0.html