FOSS and FOH
maddog's Doghouse
Free hardware is a noble concept, but expenses associated with the hardware manufacturing process means your single-board system will never be quite as a free as the software that runs on it.
From time to time, I hear people talk about "Free" or "Open" Hardware and what it means to them. After all, we have Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and shouldn't some of the same ideas of collaboration that surround FOSS apply to hardware? In many ways, Free and Open Hardware (FOH) could be like FOSS. Creators of hardware could collaborate with potential users to help determine the characteristics of the hardware. Developers who want to use the hardware to make a product could help test the functionality and interfaces of the hardware to make sure it actually works and meets their needs.
However some of the features of FOSS do not apply equally to hardware. For example, if you give away a copy of your hardware, it is a physical thing you are giving away, and, unlike software, it probably will cost money to replace it.
Costs to prototype and manufacture hardware have dropped over the years (as has the cost of the hardware itself), so it is easier than ever to design hardware outside of a large company. However, there are still significant costs for the development of hardware. Let's look at some of the costs of developing a single board computer (SBC). I will warn you that this will be from a very high-level view.
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