Open Hardware?

Posted Nov 5, 2024 12:38 UTC (Tue) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500)
Parent article: The OpenWrt One system

The hardware itself does not seem to be open? Is it intended to be when it becomes generally available?

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Open Hardware?

Posted Nov 5, 2024 14:48 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

Open in what sense? The designs have been posted under free licenses and are linked in the article; were you thinking of something else?

Open Hardware?

Posted Nov 5, 2024 19:45 UTC (Tue) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link] (1 responses)

Open in the same sense as "Open Source", in that it permitted to freely create and distribute derivative works of the hardware design.

I don't see any licensing information for the provided schematics, the kicad project file is missing, and there are no PCB design files.

Open Hardware?

Posted Nov 6, 2024 7:46 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> I don't see any licensing information for the provided schematics, the kicad project file is missing, and there are no PCB design files.

What licence needs to be provided? A copyright licence is irrelevant, as is a trademark licence. The problem is patents, which if they don't have any, they can't licence them.

And - genuine question - did they use kicad? Do they even HAVE a kicad file?

And lastly, is this highlighting the difference between "Open" and "Free"? What you're demanding seems to me to fall clearly within the realms of "Free", which is not "permitted to freely create and distribute derivative works".

"Open" is "you are free to copy my work output". "Free" is "I am obligated to provide my work source". This is clearly "Open".

Cheers,
Wol