What is Open Source Hardware? 143
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."
In a nutshell... OpenSPARC from Sun Microsystems (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In a nutshell... OpenSPARC from Sun Microsystem (Score:1, Troll)
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.
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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They were interesting once, but not anymore. It seems everything needs one or more blue LEDs just to appear modern - my notebook has 16 blue LEDs scattered on top of it, 14 of them are lit now. It hurts the eye to work in low light conditions.
Are the white ones so much more expensive?
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You must have a 6 core [sun.com] one. You can get 4 and 8 core [sun.com] ones too.
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The Niagara 2 will have one FPU/core so it will also do general computing at rocking speed.
The Rock will have 16 cores...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_processor [wikipedia.org]
The machines based on Niagara runs Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
Re:In a nutshell... OpenSPARC from Sun Microsystem (Score:3, Interesting)
With the current critical mass of free and open-source software, there is little to no need to use x86 processors - a cheap, Solaris or Linux based notebook or desktop would solve a whole lot of problems people use those x86 abominations for.
My 166 MHz Ultra 1 still starts Firefox 2.5 faster than m
Not quite. The ESA beat them to it. (Score:2)
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.
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Anyways so basically: The proprietary Cisco CallManager talks to the Cisco router's proprietary T1 controller card, via a proprietary protocol (MGCP), and the VoIP calls to the POTS phone are done vi
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Thanks for the kind words mo. I would just like to clarify that it hasn't been just me alone - for example I am just a specator for the T1/E1 project & astfin projects, preferring to concentrate on the low level hardware/driver work. FYI I am also working on an open source line echo canceller (oslec) - something the telephony world really seems to need.
Thanks,
David
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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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O
Re:Two years ago was that glorious future (Score:3, Interesting)
Pad2Pad does less than they used to. The original idea of Pad2Pad was that they'd make the blank board, then assemble and solder all the parts, using anything in the Digi-Key catalog. That made it useful, especially since surface mount device soldering really needs to be done in a production environment with the right tooling.
But they couldn't do it profitably. Now they're just another blank PC board maker, of which there are hundreds. It's been routine to send out your board design files and get boa
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Now, the only problem is that implementing and debugging a computer from scratch could be a rather time consuming undertaking.
But the parent was not talking about implementing and debugging a computer from scratch. He was talking about a Dell-style OEM store, but at the circuit level instead of the component level. When you visit Dell.com and customize a computer, choosing mobo, hard disk, cd burner, monitor, etc., all the troubleshooting has been done for you. You just choose options that are presented, and they assemble it for you.
Now imagine that on a much finer-grain scale, allowing you to choose even the on-board options. Ch
Not going to happen. (Score:2)
You can't really do this anymore because motherboard features are determined, solely, by the MCH and ICH chipsets. This is the first thing you should research when looking for a new board, once you know what can be co
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http://pcbnet.com/ [pcbnet.com]
http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/special_price.php [goldphoenixpcb.biz]
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That's too bad. I would like to build a memory expansion for my trusty IBM z-50...
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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
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You know, one of the other electronics guys at work here insists on using 0201 components to save space - but no one can solder the damn things! 0402 (.5 mm pad) just about anyone can do, if you use two soldering irons.
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hmm... (Score:1)
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Getting it to compile on your platform is the real trick.
Re:hmm...: answered (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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In theory ... (Score:1, Insightful)
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buy sophisticated electronic products which are full of DRM or any
other crap (rootkits, etc) and if by that day there is no open
source alternative (that meaning open documentation and the likes)
with at least the most important features and no patent problems,
nobody is going to be able to start from the scratch such a big project.
And that would suck big time.
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That really depends on how cheap fabrication gear is.
If you could "design" a car out of open source CAD files, and then send the resulting file down to the local mechanic for component fabrication on a $100,000 fabricator (maybe it carves the pieces out of metal with a laser, whatever) - then building your own car would turn into a similarly complex project to building a nice RC car kit.
The real problem is that actually having a new engine design built is damn expensive - fabrication requires a bunch of e
Not necessarily (Score:2)
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Open source does not mean free as in beer. Its about freedom to use, modify, and distribute.
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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.
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Besides, you need serious cash in order to get your chip fabricated! You have to have some big company pick up your design and fab them in volume. IIRC, some company is now selling chips (SoC
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[...] Besides, you need serious cash in order to get your chip fabricated! You have to have some big company pick up your design and fab them in volume. IIRC, some company is now selling chips (SoC) based on the OR1K design ... but that is the only instance I know of a chip actually getting fabbed out of all the projects listed on OpenCores.
Many of the opencores designs would work fine in the smallest ($10-$40) FPGA's... no ASIC required.
Marc
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Try this [electronics-lab.com]
The paper clip (Score:4, Funny)
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Apoligies for bad joke in advance, apoligies for bad spelling come later.
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Political Implications (Score:5, Interesting)
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But, Open source means open access and if they have developers willing to make this for common hardware and common software, then there is someone available to make it for your open platform.
The only ways to truly stop this is to have a private platform with both private hardware and software and not release anything to anyone. This is hardly open. But it does take the sleazy programmer out
Xbox 360 (Score:2)
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I was replying to the idea of being free from policeware like what was linked to in the parent post. Legal or not, If you do open some software to go onto the Xbox360, or place the device into the public to be availible in any ways, you won't be free from police ware because the cops could just get a copy of it, adapt their software and
What is Open Source Bento Boxes? (Score:1, Funny)
of 2 or more kotoba (thats japanese for 2 compartments) and has be be chibi (small) sized. And
has to be really kawaii (cute). Also It has to be about 10-20 bux. And you have to post pics of it
first (i want to make shure it's kawaii [cute]). And it would be nice if it came with matching
chopstick holder (WITH chopsticks). OH! and it CANNOT have any cartoon pictures, or be made
out of plastic. It has to be made
There ARE limits to what can be made "Free" (Score:2)
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2) Board-level design
3) OS (Linux (or probably ucLinux))
4) "Middleware" (Flash interpreter)
5) Applications
For Chumby, 2, 3 and 5 are open in some way or another. You don't have to write in Flash, it's just that they don't want you to distribute binary apps or anything that doesn't talk only to their network. Their ability to enforce this is hampered by US intellectual property law still having some limits though.
On a PC running Linux, the silicon RTL and board-level design and possibly some
more like Gnash amirite? (Score:2)
For one sense, the FSF uses the term "freedom" rather than "openness". For another, what is so non-free about haXe [haxe.org] and Gnash [gnu.org]?
A good example (Score:4, Informative)
The schematics for electronics and mechanical design are available, including in enditable source form.
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I may lose a couple of sales to DIYers, but I think it's good karma to give back to the community that has given me so much.
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.
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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
Get realistic (Score:2)
To complete an open-source hardware project (say, design a complete computer) yourself, you would need an all-consuming geek passion.
But, if you work as part of a team with others, your contribution can be quite small, and the project can still have a large impact.
The idea is that you break up a project into small enough chunks that even those who don't have much time - say, only an hour a week - can contribute to a larger, exciting project.
For example, consider designing a computer motherboard.
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Free software is based on the principles of freedom to change the design and the fact that it doesn't cost much money to develop or to use. Free hardware allows you to change the design, but there's still the issue of the cost of development, and even using the designs means spending money to have circuits made.
I think designing "open" computers is silly, you cannot compete against makers that punch o
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My little secret is that the market demand for open (and modifiable) hardware is higher than the offer. And that keeps us busy.
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Look at it from a different angle - how many people do you know who do what they do at work in their spare time? If you've been doing something for eight hours at work, it's completely natural to be sick and tired of it. I'm a consultant, and depending on the phase we're in it can be a lot of talk (workshops, meetings, design and documention) or a lot of implementation (
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My only problem is that...obsession. (Score:1, Insightful)
Well I have the skill and talent however my education wasn't "open-source" and therefore I spend a lot of time at work paying for it, and when I get home the last thing I want to be bothered with i
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In my case I'm interested in A.I. and decided that I
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.
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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.
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Many people are interested in what is called neurofeedback or EEG biofeedback training, a generic mental training method which makes the trainee consciously aware of the general activity in the brain. This method shows great potential for improving many mental capabilities and exploring consciousness. Other people want to do experiments with brain-computer interfaces or just want to have a look at their brain at work.
Unfortunately, commercial EEG
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EEG seems like a good candidate for improvement - typical EEG equipment in actual use seems to me to be somewhere around the 7-bit to 8-bit mark. Accurate analog-to-digital converters (as in: good enough for multi-billion-dollar nuclear experiments, where a mistake won't kill - at least, not until the customer has run out of torture techniques to play with) run up to 24-bit. The number of supported channels is generally
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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.
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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.
They invented this great thing called expansion cards a few decades ago, you may wish to look into them (aka: pci cards).
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.
Then don't buy cheap components or replace the built in cheap components with pci cards. If you want quality then you need to pay for it.
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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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.
If you want a tested and mass produced computer then yes you can go buy a Dell, IBM, Mac and so on. You can also find what builds other people have, ask them questions and then use the one which doesn't seem to have problems (for them). You can't have the freedom (and arguably greater performance) of picking any part and the security of a cohesive "pre-built"/"tested as a whole" machine.
It's not like
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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the things that would make people standardize on an open source hardware platform are the same things that would make them standardize on an open source software / app stack: absolute and complete freedom
Linux generally isn't the technical winner at any particular task, IMO. But anyone is free to make it arbitrarily good or arbitrarily suit their purpose, and the mainstream, non-tinkering lin
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Because hardware isn't, and can't be made, at zero cost. Making changes is expensive. Making copies is expensive. Modifying existing designs may be more expensive than starting from scratch, anyhow.
If Linux required a $1,000 license, how pop
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The fact that an x86 computer is an ugly hack should not dissuade those who want to design e
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I'd welcome the sort of hardware one might see if one were to build a dedicated linux workstation.
I'm not talking about ditching the x86 processor (necessarily). Keeping CPUs fast requires real, heavy lifting. But
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I was wondering why the hell we still have a PC inside an AT inside a 386 inside a lot of other things up to a recent x86 processor.
Do we really still need to boot PC DOS 1.0 and run Wordstar?
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Does a MacBook have an 8042/8742 built into them somewhere?
It is very important, that's what. (Score:1)
be able to buy that from any of the major manufacturers.
As long as there are designs available, and places that can
make them, we will at least have options should the industry
giants do something stupid.
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When will the production lines become open source? (Score:1)
Open hardware is NOT useless! (Score:2, Informative)
I ported uClinux to the Sony PSP (check it out at http://df38.dot5hosting.com/~remember/chris/ [dot5hosting.com]. It wasn't on slashdot because they had more important stories to run, like wh [slashdot.org]
RepRap and Weapons (Score:1)
1 - Pansy ass. If it wasn't for those 'evil' weapons you wouldn't have the freedom to do your expirements.
2 - You released the 'specs', so you no longer get to choose how its used. So get over yourself.
Ya, mod me down, but that sort of 'clueless holier then now' attitude really pisses me off.
OS hardware = sharing the, uh, source (Score:2)
Apple II polyphonic synth (Score:2)
A Robotron arcade game clone. Was just like the real thing. I think I worked on the splash scree
Open Hardware Business Models (Score:1)
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