Open Hardware Journal 103
Bruce Perens writes "Open Hardware Journal is a new technical journal on designs for physical or electronic objects that are shared as if they were Open Source software. It's an open journal under a Creative Commons license. The first issue contains articles on 'Producing Lenses With 3D Printers,' 'Teaching with Open Hardware Submarines,' 'An Open Hardware Platform for USB Firmware Updates and General USB Development,' and more."
Mr. Perens has promised to be around tonight to answer any questions readers might have.
I'm here (Score:4, Informative)
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You can park it next to RMS and his tour rider [slashdot.org] ...
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Is that a Christine movie reference or a Chewbacca defense reference?
It makes no sense!
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Re:I'm here (Score:4, Informative)
I tried this on a blog a while back, that is part of what technocrat.net was supposed to be for. What I found was that I was talking with the same 30 people all of the time. And there were maybe 3000 to 5000 regular readers at best.
There's also differentiation - I don't want this to be "just another blog".
And it seems that there is a history for technical journals being in print, and a more recent history of them being open publication. So, I am trying to do something that people who submit papers, and their bosses are used to. I have sometimes, working in academia, been asked to produce a list of my own publications. They seem to take the journal stuff more seriously than the blog stuff.
Re:I'm here (Score:4, Interesting)
I find pdf doesn't work that well on a small screen. Either you design the pdf for A6 sized paper, which doesn't look so good printed on A4 or on my 24" desktop screen, or you end up with something on your portable device that is either too small to read or requires lots of sideways scrolling. Maybe you should do the journal in something like docbook format, and use that to generate pdfs and ebook files.
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"QuickPDF" on my Android has a very simple "Reading View" button, which works very well most of the time, and almost entirely solves the problem. There's still an occasion here and there when you need to shut it off to see what "see below" or whatever is supposed to mean, but otherwise a very good solution to the problem. Now if the XPDF guys just felt the desire to code something similar...
Then again, I'm sympathetic to the hard-coded size woes, when someone else's size of choice doesn't quite work for y
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.
The margins waste space in fit-width view on a small screen, and trial-and-err
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I'm still disappointed Technocrat is no longer. It wasn't perfect and I completely understand your reasons for shutting it down. Still, it's disappointing.
I'm glad you've started to do something more public, I'm looking forward to see more of this. Open Source Software has really proven the importance of the existence of things with an alternative to the most restrictive copyrights. In fact that success has enabled me to successfully argue that the firm I worked for should abandon those restrictive copyr
EPUB should be your e-book format of choice. (Score:3)
Homepage [idpf.org] for the EPUB standard.
Why do I recommend EPUB so highly? Besides the fact that it's an open standard, that is? ;) Well, Wikipedia has a good comparison chart [wikipedia.org] of e-book formats versus the e-book readers that are covered. It shows that the only format with a broader range is straight text. (Yes, it even beats out PDF and HTML.)
There is a plug-in available for OO.o and LO called Writer2ePub that will save directly to EPUB, btw. The main support channel is through a MobileRead forum [mobileread.com].
May I s
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Nobody offered to write one.
I'm going to try the LibreOffice plugin.
Thanks
Bruce
Licensing - copyleft? (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the current licensing options for open hardware? Has anyone found a "copyleft" equivalent?
About a decade ago, this issue was discussed at length on the OpenCores mailing lists. At the time, the best we (engineers) could come up with was that the design documents/files could be copyrighted and so GPLd, but there was no way to oblige that a physical device be distributed with design data.
It seemed to be okay for someone to take a design, make secret modifications, build it and distributed a physical product that could not be replicated. The obligation to share modifications only kicked in when the GPLd design data was distributed, not when the physical product was distributed. Is this the case, or has a real legal mind figured out that we were wrong?
Re:Licensing - copyleft? (Score:4, Informative)
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Thanks for the response. I'll keep an eye on the wiki.
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But
yes, there is a problem that Hardware Isn't Generally Copyrightable [openhardware.org]
W T F ??? you think its bad it isnt copyrightable?
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My main interest on this issue is to have something like reciprocal licensing in software that I can use to keep people from making their modifications to my design trade-secret. It is sometimes a fact that locking up a design is an economic disadvantage. If that were true all of the time, we would not need reciprocal licensing.
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I understand.
My main interest on this issue is to have something like reciprocal licensing in software that I can use to keep people from making their modifications to my design trade-secret. It is sometimes a fact that locking up a design is an economic disadvantage. If that were true all of the time, we would not need reciprocal licensing.
You sound like a programmer (or music studio exec), not EE. We EEs love when our designs are reused. We ourselves reuse designs all the time.
Whats next? Putting copyright and patents on datasheet example designs?
Something tells me you would like to get paid royalties for your "designs".
It all stinks.
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Re:Licensing - copyleft? (Score:4, Informative)
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In the OHL, I don't understand the legal basis for section 4, "Manufacture and distribution of Products". What gives this section any force beyond a "gentleman's agreement" or a legal bluff, which is easily ignored? I can see that copyright is the legal basis for section 3, dealing with documentation, but don't see the same for section 4. Don't get me wrong, I want the OHL to be binding, but currently I don't see how it can be.
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Re:I'm here (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'm here (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, anyone who wants to help with web design, we could use some.
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I'm curious about the logo - is that essentially just the "Open Hardware Journal" logo or, as the footer states a logo for "Open Hardware", to be used as such in open hardware materials?
And then who/what is Open Hardware in relationship to Open Source Hardware?
The current edition's call for papers points out that all Open Hardware submitted should be compliant with the Open Source Hardware definition.
But then, supposedly the adopted logo for that is the 'gear' version of the Open Source (software) logo.
http [oshwlogo.com]
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Go figure - while I posted that, the page was updated with some further internal links (besides just the journal). My question regarding the name ("Open Hardware" vs "Open Source Hardware") is partially answered in:
http://wiki.openhardware.org/Project:Constitution [openhardware.org]
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And while I'm following links and posting replies to myself...
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/general/2011-September/thread.html [openhardware.org]
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/legal/2011-September/thread.html [openhardware.org]
There's some threads in those topics that discuss the logo. Perhaps most specifically:
http://lists.openhardware.org/pipermail/legal/2011-September/000004.html [openhardware.org]
I might be reading it wrong, but I guess there's some concern that the winning OSHW logo is too similar to OSI which doesn't fully align with the
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The plan is to license the chip-and-lock logo so that you can use it on your designs if they are under a certified Open Hardware license, and if you contract, in writing, to honor Open Hardware licenses as if copyright applied, even if it doesn't.
The idea, in part, is that if you copy a PC board bearing the logo without signing the contract to honor the license, you're infringing. It's a kludge, but it gets us some of the license enforcement that we are used to wit
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This looks really fun; reading the first issue now, with my morning coffee.
One thing: you have no RSS feed for the journal. Not the actual contents, I hasten to add; just a low-volume feed for announcing new issues would be really helpful. There is no way I will remember to check for new issues, and RSS feeds are a great way to be reminded when there's new stuff on a site I follow.
RSS (Score:2)
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Good job. I love this stuff. I plan to read every word of every issue.
I have high hopes for the open hardware movement.
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Bruce isn't the only person from OHJ here :) I'm Christopher Olah, the author of the "Producing Lenses with 3D Printers" article.
I'd be happy to answer any questions about my article, surfcad [wordpress.com], ImplicitCAD [github.com], Malthus [wordpress.com], 3D printed vacuum cleaners [wordpress.com], and any questions about my other projects or 3D printing in general.
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The main reasons for creating yet another logo are:
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Bruce --
Would you be willing to take part in a Slashdot interview sometime soon? :)
timothy
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That's excellent -- I'll be in touch soon about setting that up :)
Cheers,
timothy
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FIrst, if I am not mistaken the RepRap guys want to be copied.
However, I have also taken the RepRap guys to task for overstating what their system can do. I have a slide in my current talk about Open Hardware regarding the fact that you absolutely can't print a makerbot with a makerbot. Only some of the plastic parts.
I also hate going to Eric Drexler's talks, because so much about nanotech stil
Mr? (Score:2)
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"Open Hardware Submarines.." Inspired by submarine patents?
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By the way, this [seaeye.com] is what a real one looks like. Notice the big cord sticking out of the top.
Here's come constructive criticism of the journal itself. Bruce, you listenin'? In the 3d printer section, details are given on how to write the parabola. The other articles seem to be glorified links to sites. Is the journal meant to be instructional, or just a showcase, or both? I for one would
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I intend to get a paper selection committee together. Hopefully by issue 4. Right now, I'm it, but that doesn't generally ge
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Following on in the grand tradition of open hardware in the Amateur Radio community, I see.
Best wishes in the road ahead!
73
KC9KBP
Fab lab network (Score:2)
I have been a wee bit involved in the fab lab network (born in MIT by Neil Gershenfeld), it's a really cool network of 'labs' which are basically small buildings with some 3d manufacturing equipment, printers and enough 'stuff' to allow people to make anything they can dream of. One of the goals is to spread the designs to other labs around the world.
1: To me it would seem this effort you are now involved in could act as a ca
Re:Fab lab network (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, not just bring projects together, but avoid some of the mistakes we made with Open Source. Like have "recommended" licenses, with the recommended set really small, so we don't have the problem of 80 licenses accepted by the Open Source Initiative and no "recommended" list because we can't dis-recommend a license without offending someone. And not start out by building a schism between Free Software and Open Source. I could rant about all of the things that went wrong for a while...
We could use good videos for smart people. The coverage we have so far panders to a lowest common denominator of viewers. I'd be delighted if someone was able to make better videos. If I tried to do it, though, it would eat all of my time.
Yes, we definitely want to stimulate a new movement, and put both thought and experience into it.
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>Yes, we definitely want to stimulate a new movement, and put both thought and experience into it.
I'm keen. Is the current action concentrated in any one spot, or distributed around the net?
My gut feeling is that given the activity of the last couple of years the "new movement" already exists. If what already exists was focused, documented and disseminated, there would be a substantial body of work. (IMO) What is needed is a distribution mechanism/platform: an opencollector [opencollector.org] on sterioids; a Debian [debian.org] fo
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My short term goals are 1. To make sure we don't have a license mess, like we got with Open Source software. 2. To promote that people share essentially the same rights as in the Open Source Definition. 3. To promote the movement toward Open Hardware in general.
The CERN folks, and others, have been working on archive sites for designs, so that d
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Does 'hardware' extend to FPGAs and the like (Score:2)
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Alas, the software is mostly proprietary but at least low-or-zero cost. We will eventually get Open Hardware gate-arrays, but we're not there yet.
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VHDL Cookbook [uni-hamburg.de] is a good, though dated, intro.
Use ghdl [ghdl.free.fr] to learn vhdl, without the need to have hardware, as it compiles VHDL to an executable. Icarus [icarus.com] is similar, but for Verilog. gEDA [gpleda.org] has good tools, including the gtkwave [sourceforge.net] waveform viewer. Combined, ghdl, Icarus and gtkwave are a pretty useful simulation suite. You can go a long way with simulation, since the normal design flow is to get the system 100% using simulation, then as a last step program the FPGA with maximal probability of it just working.
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VHDL Cookbook [uni-hamburg.de] is a good, though dated, intro.
Use ghdl [ghdl.free.fr] to learn vhdl, without the need to have hardware, as it compiles VHDL to an executable. Icarus [icarus.com] is similar, but for Verilog. gEDA [gpleda.org] has good tools, including the gtkwave [sourceforge.net] waveform viewer. Combined, ghdl, Icarus and gtkwave are a pretty useful simulation suite. You can go a long way with simulation, since the normal design flow is to get the system 100% using simulation, then as a last step program the FPGA with maximal probability of it just working.
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LibreOffice (Score:2)
Apparently it as produced with LibreOffice (metadata, if you can't spot it). Is the source odt file for the journal available? It's fairly clear that designing the journal was not a priority, and I think that's fine, but in terms of sane defaults, Latex would have produced a much better looking document. E.g. the odd positioning of "Software:" on page 19 just wouldn't happen, left aligned instead of justified is very strange, no hyphenation.
If you're worried about the increased work load (without cause, in
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Hey, I'm the author to the article "Producing Lenses With 3D Printers". It was originally in LaTeX and I think it looked a lot better that way. You can get the original PDF of it here [wordpress.com] .
I'd be happy to answer any questions about it, surfcad [wordpress.com], ImplicitCAD [github.com], Malthus [wordpress.com], 3D printed vacuum cleaners [wordpress.com], or any questions about my projects or 3D printing in general.
(Essentially resubmitting my previous anonymous comment since I reset the login for this account and no one sees Anonymous Coward posts.)
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A proper DTP app will eventually be needed (Score:2)
As the Journal is evolving, you'll find that simple applications like Libre Office simply are not flexible enough. Please consider (the sooner the better) migrating the workflow towards Scribus (http://www.scribus.net) - it's Desktop Publishing - oriented, open source and the best FOSS tool for the job.
Also, as a former DTP pro, I'd recommend producing two versions of the journal - one that's meant to be read on paper, and (at least) one meant to be read on-screen. The present form of the Journal is a hybri
editorial criteria (Score:2)
this is potentially a huge space. do you have any ideas about the segment you're addressing? I can
image projects that are
- too dangerous: there are some plans floating around for making a tig welder out of a microwave transformer, which seems
cool but it might be too dodgy
- too
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Sad Microsoft bashing (Score:1)
Page 24:
I believe that this violates my implicit right to repair objects I own. But the real problem is that this photo was taken with a Motorola battery installed – in fact, this is the original battery that shipped with my phone. There is a trend in devices to protect the interests of the manufacturer rather then the interests of the owner/end user. Unfortunately, as we saw with the market failure of Windows Vista and see here, these attempts often make the device inconvenient or unusable by the owner/end user.
Except.. Vista isn't a hardware system, and it doesn't prevent users doing anything they want to with their hardware. In fact, it doesn't prevent users doing anything they want with their software either. Also, UAC doesn't restrict the user, it's simply an interface annoyance (which was excessive in Vista, but far better in Win7). This is so completely out of place in the story.
A sad attempt to insert an irrelevant Microsoft bash simply for the sake of it, lets the entire journal down.
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Perhaps I wasn't clear enough for you. The article purports to blame DRM for the failure of Vista. My point is, DRM has very little to do with the failure of Vista, and subsequent versions have only built on that DRM. In other words, pointing out Vista's failure was inserted simply to try and bash Microsoft for something. There are many products which DO fail due to their DRM. Vista wasn't one of them. It was completely irrelevant to the article, and judging by your response, will go unnoticed (and even, ba
Re:Sad Microsoft bashing (Score:4, Insightful)
When we say Open platform, it really means a vendor willing to sell hardware without locking down the software in it.
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I'd completely agree with you in regards to Windows 8. But I still don't see Vista fitting in contexually to the statements made at all.
"There is a trend in devices to protect the interests of the manufacturer " .. "as we saw with the market failure of Windows Vista and see here"
The market failure of Windows Vista had nothing at all to do with vendor hardware locking whatsoever. That Windows Vista was a market failure is beyond dispute. That any lockouts may or may not have occurred in embedded systems with
Re:Sad Microsoft bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
Journal management software (Score:1)
Hi Bruce!
Obviously I'm biased, since I work on the project -- but have you seen Public Knowledge Project's "Open Journal Systems"? It's FOSS and its goal is to automate the management and workflow for publishing an academic-style journal. It wouldn't do your layout etc. for you, but it would help with submission management, peer review, and a lot of the associated stuff that needs doing. See http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs for the details.
Cheers,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
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Like "Make", but dumber (Score:2)
It's like reading a dumbed down version of "Make" magazine. "How to Make Really Crappy Lenses with a 3D Printer". "How to Make a Submarine Out of Plastic Irrigation Pipe". A simple USB to something interface board. Plus a whiney "Open Hardware Needs Your Help" section, and a long rant on the right to modify stuff.
Compare "Home Shop Machinist", "Fine Woodworking", "Nuts and Volts", or "Servo". There are far better DIY magazines.
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I believe that writing about "How to Make Really Crappy Lenses with a 3D Printer" is similar to advising readers to forget the normal GNU/Linux they run on their computers and make some DIY OS and run it on the 8-bit microprocessor. Of course, such DIY
Open source tool chains (Score:2)
Bruce,
One of my pet peeves is open hardware projects that use closed source or free-beer-crippleware design automation tools. It seems very hard to get people to see how important it is to provide open hardware design files in formats that can be edited with open source DA tools. I even had Lady Ada tell me once in a forum: "Tools don't matter." I found that attitude shocking. I understand that a fully open source tool chain is neither practical nor appropriate for every open hardware project. But I am
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I think we are in the equivalent to the period when RMS was writing GNU C on a Sun Microsystems workstation. We need fully Open Source toolchains. Currently, we don't have them for gate-arrays. And we have a large number of people who prefer Eagle over the various Open Source alternatives, which probably means the Open Source ones aren't good enough yet. And those folks haven't really understood the draconian Eagle license.
So