Hi Welcome to the Eev Blog an Electronics Engineering Video blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. I'm your host Dave Jones Hi I thought I'd Talk about Open- Source Hardware or Open Hardware Because there seems to be a lot of confusion out there. a lot of misinformation about exactly what Open Source Hardware is what the definition of it is. When can you call your stuff open hardware and what license should you use and why you would do it? Why would you give your stuff away? Sounds ridiculous.

Well, I thought I'd Try and break it down for you. Here we go. So what is Open-source Hardware Well, the best example is the Aduino, as you're probably familiar with, it is the classic example of a successful Open- Source Hardware project. And open Source Hardware is kind of like, uh, open source software.

except with software, there's nothing tangible. There's nothing physical of actual worth. If you copy an open-source uh, software product, then you get the exact functional product for free completely for free. But Open Source Hardware doesn't work like that.

This costs money to actually produce. It's about the design files to manufacture this. the information to manufacture. this is free and open so that anyone can duplicate this Hardware themselves if they don't want to buy it.

That's basically what Open Source Hardware is. Remember, it's not free Hardware It's open Hardware Thankfully, there's actually now a formal definition of what Open- Source Hardware is and I'm going to link to the actual definition of it and it's got 12 different points points. It sounds quite complex, quite involved, but I'm going to break it down to just two. Essential Elements cuz I Think that's all there is in Open- Source Hardware It's very simple.

Point Number one: you have to give away all of the manufacturing and design files for this Hardware to allow anyone to not only recreate the hardware, but to also change it and make derivative works from it. So it's not just good enough to give away a PDF of the schematic and the Gerber files. and that's it that's not open. Hardware It's not good enough you have to give away and crucially, this is very important.

You have to give away the original uh, PCB and schematic files for your hardware and it includes the firmware as well to make it work and any necessary PC software to make it work and stuff like that, the bill of materials and anything else, block diagrams, as much documentation as you can give away to allow people to create and modify this without having to buy it. And just with those CAD files, there can be a real contentious issue. CU A lot of people claim that's not truly open open-source Hardware if you don't use open source Eda software tool. So if you design your Uh Open Source Hardware project and you release it in say Alim designer which is a commercial product no free thing available then that's completely sucky, but probably still okay.

If you release it in Eagle it might be the next level. Once again, still a commercial software package, but at least a free version is available that's kind of less sucky. And then you get down to the point where, well, you use an Open- Source tool and that's the true Spirit of it key. CAD Jeter or one of the other.

uh, open- Source CAD tools Point Number two: you have to give complete freedom to people to do whatever they like with the hardware and that includes to sell it and and possibly even compete with you with the exact same product using the exact same files. You cannot restrict it to a non-commercial entity so that you're the only one who can make money from it that's not open. Hardware It's it's about the hardware being free and open for people to do whatever they want with it. You can't discriminate against people you can't say I don't like Joe blogs so I'm not going to let him use it.

You can't do that And you can't stop people from using the hardware in a way that you don't approve of. Somebody wants to use it in a nuclear bomb. Well, that's up to them. You can't stop them.

Freedom Now when it comes to licensing your Open- Source Hardware product, there's a bunch of licenses available and I'll link to them and uh, it. What it essentially comes down to, though, is that the license must meet the terms and conditions of the Open-source Hardware Definition The official definition That's been defined not by some official group, but just by peers in the industry they've got together and they've said, this is what we think Open- Source Hardware should be and anyone who calls it Open- Source Hardware or Open Hardware should follow this definition. If you don't don't call it open Hardware call it something else, but there's many licenses available. GPL Uh is a popular one.

CERN Now have a new Open-source Hardware license. Check it out. Uh, the very popular Creative Commons Uh License is extremely popular, but Beware of the non-commercial aspect of the license, you can't put that little clause which says non-commercial in there. If you do that, it ain't open Hardware anymore.

End the story. There's a whole bunch of licenses which one you actually choose doesn't really matter as long as you meet the spirit and the ethos of what Open Source Hardware is about. You can even just completely give it away. You don't have to have a license.

Public domain. Boom. Go! There's one important thing to remember with Open Hardware and that is if you take somebody's Open Hardware project and you modify it for your own purposes and then you go sell it, then that's fine. but you under are then under an obligation to give that design back to the community under the same license that you got it from so you have to share it.

It's share a like so if you're using the Creative Commment license, you Must use the Share Alike license and that helps build up knowledge and build up the product and everyone's work builds upon each other and we get better products in the Open source. Community Now, even if somebody completely gives away their stuff under no license into the public domain no streams attached here it is. I Give it to the world then it's still common courtesy to acknowledge where you got it from, give them some attribution. If you got this little bit of source code or this little uh circuit snippet from some, somebody, just acknowledge them.

It's just common courtesy and it works both ways. If you do it for them, they'll do it for you. Somebody else will do it for somebody else. Etc And it'll just be one nice big happy sharing.

Community Awesome group hug. Ha. So why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to give away their design? It's been a year working on your widget. You worked really hard.

You set up an online shop, you're trying to sell it as a finished product as a kit. You're trying to get into the business, trying to make some money, trying to get some fortune. and Glory why would you just give it away as open? Hardware Oh, it's a very good question and there's several answers. First of all, while they might be some one hung low companies in China on eBay selling a clone of your product and they might be taking some sales away from you in general, it's not really a big deal because the people involved in the Open Source hard Weare Community have the same ethos as you and they would rather pay a little bit more and help you out.

Help give money to the original designer, get the original product, the original support and things like that, then buy it from the One Hung Low company in China So don't worry about it too much. you can still make your fortune and glory and release it as open Hardware. And if you do want to protect your design just a little bit, you can do what the Arduino Mob have done and you can trademark your name. look little TM next door it.

it means nobody but the Arduino mob can use that name. hence Chipkit. And or do we know this? Do we know that? Okay, and you you can do that and you're still within the spirit of the Open Source Hardware Community But I'd like to think that you probably don't even need to get a trademark if you just say to people that hey I'd prefer it if you don't use that name or you take or if you want to spread it then you know take off, don't use my logo or my whatever. Okay and most people will be happy to abide by that because it's a big sharing community and those that don't abide by it, well, they'll probably end up getting a bad rep and sort of be you know shed aside in the community.

Second thing is, most of the open-source Hardware licenses have attribution Clauses attached to them, so your name will should always be attributed with that particular idea, that particular product or whatever and you become the industry expert on that product. And that can lead to not only Glory but it can lead to Fortune as well. Because you people might approach you, big companies might approach you because you're famous because you designed X widget, so they might hire you to design something similar for them or do other Consulting work. you might be asked to speak somewhere, do whatever.

There's lots of avenues to make your fortune, and Glory third, it can be that warm fuzzy feeling you get inside when you contribute something to the industry and you get all this email floods of email of people thanking you and helping you people if you give to the Open Source Hardware Community people will give back in terms of time if you're not very, If you're widget or something needs a really nice custom case and you suck at designing CAD files, you might have somebody come up and say hey, I like your product, I'll design you a case for free or something else. It's give and take. It's all part of the big wide community that can be a really good thing to have if you build up your name and rep in the industry. And of course, it's understandable.

If you've worked hard on your little Gadget and you want to restrict people, uh, selling it and competing against you, well, that's just fine. It's your design. You have the freedom to do that. but just don't call it open Hardware or Open Source Hardware Because people in the industry who support the actual definition of Open Source Hardware they'll come and wag your finger at you and you'll get a bad rep.

So by all means go and sell your product. But it a't open Hardware Unless you meet the definition. There you have it. that's Open Source.

Hardware In a nutshell, it's not as crazy as it might seem, and there can be some real big positive and long lasting benefits to open- sourcing your next project. So why I Give it a try, set your next project free, and see where it takes you now. Open Source Hardware has actually been around for a long time. A hell of a long time.

The concept has been around forever, but the definition is fairly new. It's only been ratified fairly recently as a general consensus in the industry, and not everyone necessarily agrees with it. But just be careful. if you are going to make the claim that your product is open Hardware or Open Source Hardware same thing, then make sure it meets the definition.

You don't want to piss off people who take this sort of thing and the definition very seriously, but essentially it comes down to the spirit and the ethos of the whole Open- Source Hardware movement, and a lot of people can get really passionate and opinionated about this whole thing. Now there's no doubt that the Uh definition will change over time with how what happens in the industry. and with Community feedback. The whole thing was built on community feedback.

So if you've got feedback or some opinion on how open SCE Source Hardware should work, how you know, if you don't like something in the definition, then well leave some comments, contribute, leave some video responses, get your opinion out there and your voice heard, and you might just help shape the future of the Open Source Hardware industry. See you a.