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What is Open Source Hardware?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Apr 23, 2007 03:12 PM
from the everyone's-favorite-buzzword dept.
from the everyone's-favorite-buzzword dept.
ptorrone writes "In their piece 'What is open source hardware?', MAKE magazine divides up electronic hardware into layers, each of which has different document types and licensing concerns: Hardware (mechanical) diagrams, schematics & circuit diagrams, layout diagrams, core/firmware, software/API — each layer has an example provided and links to many of the open source hardware projects currently being worked on."
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In a nutshell... OpenSPARC from Sun Microsystems (Score:5, Informative)
How is SPARC these days? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can anyone fill me in on what its performance is like compared to x86 these days, when running Linux or Unix (Solaris)? (I don't think MS even supports Windows on non-x86 anymore, except perhaps Itanium and it's probably near-EOL anyway.)
There seemed to be a lot of buzz about the Niagara stuff a while back, and how amazing the performance/watt was going to be, and then it seemed to evaporate. Did something happen, or was that just the fanboys moving on to something else shiny? (And is Niagara open-source/open-architecture like the more basic SPARC processors?)
I've always been a big fan of RISC, since back in the early 90s; I think it's sad that we're fast approaching a monoculture, although there's some solace, I suppose, in the fact that with decreasing process sizes, you can now tack the x86 instruction set onto almost any real processor you want. But it certainly seemed like there were more avenues for performance being investigated back when you had IBM with Power, DEC with Alpha, Sun with SPARC, SGI with MIPS, HP with PA-RISC, and probably a bunch more that I've forgotten.
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Re:How is SPARC these days? (Score:5, Interesting)
It does have 300% more blue LEDs than the last gen sun hardware though ;)
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Free Telephony Project (Score:5, Informative)
David Rowe, the author has almost single-handedly designed an embedded computer using a blackfin processor combined with FXO/FXS (PSTN lines) chips to produce an extremely low-cost PBX running uclinux and asterisk. Recent posts indicate he's also close to producing a T1 interface as well. The amazing thing about this project is how open it all is. The cirucuit design, and layout for all of the boards are open. Also, he's committed to using only open-source software to do the design (and contributed a number of enhancements back to these projects, such as pcb [sourceforge.net]). Not to mention also developing the uclinux based distribution, astfin, as well as a number of custom modifications to asterisk itself to use some of the Blackfin's special DSP capabilities.
Possibly, in a glorious future (Score:5, Interesting)
If you care to sell your soul for rock 'n' roll, you can opt for the various DRM choices.
Maybe it arrives as a bag of chips, and you solder it yourself.
Interesting posibilities.
Today is that glorious future (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you have that right now.
Every hear of Pad2Pad.com? [pad2pad.com]
If you can do the layout, they'll make your board for you. Yes, it is kind of expensive for hobby projects, but for a computer motherboard it's not *terribly* bad. A commercially made motherboard is still cheaper, but I guess if you want something without DRM, you're always welcome to implement it yourself.
Now, the only problem is that implementing and debugging a computer from scratch could be a rather time consuming undertaking. But, if you've got the time, there are places who will build it for you, whatever *it* is.
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Re: (Score:3)
Making custom versions of what's being mass produced in the millions is usually not advised unless you have a very good reason to do so, for high value, specialized
Brilliant name (Score:4, Funny)
Wrong Preferred Document Formats (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really like an object file (Score:3, Interesting)
Still, using geda would definitely help. Shame so few people use it. Perhaps a something like a Protel to geda converter would be a GoodThing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Another site (mostly RTL level) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if anybody's said it explicitly, but a hardware equivalent to SourceForge would be a great asset to the community, where people can share RTL, schematics, PCB and chip layouts, and so forth.
The paper clip (Score:4, Funny)
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Apoligies for bad joke in advance, apoligies for bad spelling come later.
Political Implications (Score:5, Interesting)
A good example (Score:4, Informative)
The schematics for electronics and mechanical design are available, including in enditable source form.
My only problem is that... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surrounded by engineers with the capability to produce open source computers, but...
Nobody has the time or interest.
Yes, I (among many) could design and implement a computer complete from the gate-level design all the way up to the compiler and operating system.
Ironically, now that I have the knowledge, I don't have the time to work on it. It gets worse:
If I did build my own computer, friends and family would inevitably ask, "So why did you spend $(Multiple thousands) for a computer slower than the $299 Sam's club special?", and "Isn't that just an expensive hobby? - you don't really expect people to buy a 1 GHz ARM machine, do you?" etc..
I would like to work on open source hardware. I do have experience porting Linux to new architectures. But sadly, I think something about corporate america just takes away the passion from the discipline. Since I started programming more than 10 years ago, I have met only one person who was passionate enough about it to do it outside of work. And you know what he did? - mods for a game. Nothing really serious or interesting.
It's not that there is a lack of talent. Rather, apathy is fatal to open source. And we need to come to terms with the fact that the overwhelming majority of those with the knowledge to do something disruptive, to use their skill to change their world for the better, choose just to go home at night and watch tv.
They have no geek passion. They are irrelevant to the discipline. And they are exactly what Corporate America wants them to be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever, I have geek passion, I just don't have all-consuming geek passion. My job is a perfect outlet for the geek passion -- I get to be a geek all day. Then in my off-time I can hang out with friends, listen to music, dance, cook, whatever other hobbies I'm currently pursuing.
I'm pretty sure that if I worked in sales or management I'd have to work on electronics or write code wh
Open-Schematic Stereo... (Score:3, Interesting)
But...
It came with a COMPLETE set of schematics, including not just block diagrams, but actual component values and chip numbers. Given that schematic, I could have build a complete new unit. I was floored. I almost wanted to try it, just to see if I could - but couldn't imagine trying to build the whole thing on breadboard with my trusty Radio-Shack soldering iron. Would have been the size of an old console record player - the kind that doubles as furniture.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Open source medical equipment (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of what passes for 'advanced' medical equipment in the US is actually kludged ancient technology. It sells for absurd amounts of money because of the bizarre 'cost-is-no-object' state of the American Health Care industry. And a lot of people are beginning to be denied basic medical care because they don't have the money to pay for it.
But a lot of medical tests could be done with inexpensive high-tech equipment that has been modified for home medical use. There may come an underground movement to build very high-tech medical equipment cheaply. Equipment that surpasses the quality of what is found in ordinary hospitals, but costs one tenth of the price. It would have no FDA certification, and would be quite illegal. No accredited doctor would use it.
The difference between open source software and open source medical equipment would be that the medical equipment would be illegal. And the people doing the test and interpreting the results would be subject to arrest for practicing medicine without a license.
But in many cases, the test results are just electronic data and can be analyzed by computer to give same level of professionalism as found in the hospital. An example of this would be having to pay $150 for a blood pressure test in a hospital that is identical to the test that you would get from the machine next to the door of your local grocery store.
The US electronic medical equipment industry is in about the same place as the US automobile industry was in early 1970's. Overly restricted by trivial regulations, smug in their belief in their omnipresent power, and completely unaware that they are about to get totally blindsided by people overseas who can do the job much cheaper and much better.
The USA lost the machine tools industry, the consumer electronics industry, most of the automobile industry, and many other industries by not paying attention to what the global consumers of these products actual need and want to buy. The US medical electronics industry is most likely being targetted now because it is showing all the same characteristics as those other industries that were dominated by American companies after World War Two.
There's a foundation all about Open Hardware! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.openhardwarefoundation.org/ [openhardwa...dation.org]
http://www.opengraphics.org/ [opengraphics.org]
A lot of people are really taking this idea of open hardware designs very seriously, especially in graphics, where we have a really hard time getting docs out of GPU vendors to write Free Software drivers. One of the commenters on this article said something about how he and his colleagues who know how to do this stuff have no interest in doing it outside of work. This isn't true for everyone. The founder and leader of the Open Graphics Project is an experienced graphics chip designer.
How much hardware variety is truly needed? (Score:5, Insightful)
- gate-level design of a modern CPU
- gate-level design of a modern GPU
- gate-level design of a modern northbridge
- gate-level design of a modern southbridge
- gate-level design of a modern audio controller
- gate-level design of a modern ethernet controller
- gate-level design of a modern wifi chip
- gate-level design of a modern usb controller
- the linux kernel
my understanding is that there is a lot of really, really badly made hardware out there. the software people are clever enough to reverse engineer the hardware and write drivers. Why not put a few of them to work forward engineering the hardware?
Which peices of a modern computing system cannot run acceptably off of re-flashable firmware, or better yet, re-flashable FPGAs?
At this point, are (some) resources better spent trying to create F/OSS reference designs for every essential component to build a fully open computer platform?
I like the idea of being able to have a 100% open computer, where each of the components is well understood and discussed out in the open, and people aren't wasting a lot of time supporting badly made hardware. Some de-facto standardization around reference open source implementations of the hardware could be a pretty good thing.
It's actually not stuff like the CPU that i care about.. its more like.. all of the other things that make it onto a motherboard. There's no reason to put up with noisy audio, non-functional s/pdif outputs, buggy "hardware" raid, crappy bios, etc. The only value-add in these components is when they manage to live up to their as-advertised specs reliably.
Re:How much hardware variety is truly needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't believe I can reasonably even count all the reasons why not, let alone explain them all here...
First, I'd say economies of scale... The fewer people buy it, the more you'll have to charge, and the more you charge, the fewer people will buy one...
Another is the pace of technology... Every time hardware changes, you have to update the design, and start building new hardware... eg. DDR to DDR2 RAM, Socket 939 to AM2, etc., etc.
To be a real option, you're going to have to have different form factors for hardware. With motherboards that means ATX, microATX, nanoATX, and whatever else. For graphics that means PCI, AGP 2/4/8X, etc., as well as PCIe, and integrated chipsets for the purpose as well.
Additionally, while creating drivers for undocumented hardware is quite difficult, it's still at least an order of magnitude easier to send bytes to a device and see what they do, than it is designing an efficient chip, even for something simple like sound.
But the point that I think cuts directly to the heart of the issue is: If people were willing to standardize on a single reference platform, as dictated by an open source guru, you could just start doing that tomorrow... Name the CPU, name the motherboard, name the sound card, graphics, etc., etc. Then everyone's efforts are focused on a single set of hardware, with working drivers for that small set of hardware, etc.
That would be using normal economic forces to your advantage, instead of trying to fight market forces, and enter the market yourself. It could make open source a valuable bloc of customers for any company who can offer reliable and documented products. The problem is, of course, that nobody is going to accept those terms. People want to use the hardware they have, and don't want to be restricted to the lowest common denominator hardware, lacking the features, specs, or the form factor they want.
As has already been said by others, a hardware review site, which extensively tested equipment for 100% correctness, all-around quality, and open source compatibility, would be extremely valuable, and much more helpful than an over-priced reference platform.
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Re:How much hardware variety is truly needed? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think there is an issue of "cheap" or "not cheap" here.. irrespective of how much or how little you pay for a peice of PC hardware, it will tend to have some fault when used in combination with some other peice of hardware.. or it will have some quirk that makes it irritating for your particular scenario. Want your machine to S3 sleep? Hope all of your expansion cards work properly with S3. The fan on my VGA card doesn't power down in sleep modes.. only in hibernate... so I effectively can't use sleep. Now, if i scour high resolution board photos of any part i buy before buying it, i MIGHT get to learn things like that.. but whenever you do a new machine build there is always some discovery / quirkyness to uncover.. no matter how much time you spend reading reviews of hardware from other people, or how carefully you research components.
One answer to this is "buy a mac", where the whole stack from silicon to software is owned and tested as a cohesive unit. There are some advantages to that model, and I don't see why the same model can't work, or even be better, with a mostly or completely open system.
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Re:hmm...: answered (Score:4, Informative)
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