What is Digg?27 Comments
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Not necessarily. It certainly isn't as easy as OSS but can work. What can be done is openly designed hardware that then goes onto be manufactured by the normal processes.
- cbergeron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Open source hardware is out there, and it makes good business sense in my opinion.
I'm about to open source the Dashwerks startup and shutdown controller. It's an electronic device that helps you put a desktop computer in your car. You can see pictures/details here: http://www.dashpc.com or http://www.dashwerks.com/dw_dssc.php
It's a commercial product, but I'm about to release the schematics, board layout, Eagle renderings, etc to the open source community because it has great hack potential. Someone could take my project and expand upon it - so I'm willing to sacrifice a few potential sales for the greater good of the open-source community. It's the least I can give back to the community that's helped me so much. - pixelpimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I this lack of shared Technologies is why we don't have jet packs today! Everyone is so busy suing each other over patents it disgusting!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It's definitely not anything made by Apple
- orange, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That code snippet they provide is verilog, not vhdl. It's much, much, much harder to write and verify some RTL description of hardware than regular C code, so don't count on anything huge coming out of the open cores movement. There are some relatively simple open cores which are useful, though. Check out opencores.org.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"What can be done is openly designed hardware that then goes onto be manufactured by the normal processes."
Which is exactly how it should be, can, and is done. Look at Open Source Software, we're taking designs that are open (source files), sending them through a manufacturer (compiler) that may be either open (GCC), closed (Intel's, Borland's, Microsoft's), or some mix. Nobody is talking about Open Manufacturing (though that'd be an interesting road to go down; there's a community machine shop in San Fransisco that I think would be what I'd consider "open manufacturing"), we're talking about Open Hardware. - 5plic3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you want to get into open source embedded systems, check out http://www.arduino.cc/
- mbthompson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10Q: What is open source hardware?
A: A fairytale. - fxmcleod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2www.crowdspirit.org
is an open source project for developing consumer electronics products. - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"is why we don't have jet packs today!"
Couldn't possibly be anything to do with physics, nope, just patent warfare. - musicianman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Fascinating stuff, it's a little beyond my capabilities but something I might look into in the future.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, the OpenSPARC S1 came out of OpenCores, which is a single core version of the UltraSPARC T1 meant for embedded environments, and they're close to bringing it to silicon (pretty sure they're thinking Structured ASIC/FGPA conversion though, not that it's a bad thing necessarily).
One core, 4 threads, 64-bit. Should be faster than anything ARM (probably slower than high-speed PPCs though), and entirely open. - Tacobake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Fascinating.
- DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that submitting your own content to digg is frowned upon. Why is it ok for make magazine and not for others?
- mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2cbergeron, i admire your support of the community and your DashPC projects@chrisbergeron.com, but from your site i noticed the following quote in reference to wVoIP:
"Why am I not rich? Well, because I gave the trade secrets away. By the time I realized that I could make money doing this, it was already too late."
I think you should be very careful not to put yourself in a hole, after all you have no obligation to the community, your personal finances should come first, i think most open source project managers would agree. Open source turns into a bad thing when the very people doing all the innovation and development on new projects have a hard time supporting themselves. Doesn't always happen that way, but i've seen it a few times. - mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They just happen to use apple computers a lot, its no different than any other magazine. There are a number of other magazines that routinely talk about windows, and you can tell everyone who works there is using it.
In any case i don't think you can draw any conclusions, most people don't consciously decide to use a platform for valid reasons anyway. Me, i use XP, Vista, OS X, Ubuntu, and Suse Linux at various times for different purposes. - user98887, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, there are jet packs around - for ages.
They even had one in the opening of the 1984 Olympic games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_pack
I suppose the advancement was due to neither patent problems or shared technology. - makezine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hah, what are you talking about? check out the links people (including myself) sell open source hardware. recipes are found in cook books but people still go out to eat and buy pre-made food and ingredients.
- makezine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1open source medical equipment - humans aren't obsolete (yet)
- nudgeee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think open source hardware will be a niche for a few more years yet -- simply because of the massive overheads of verifying, debugging, prototyping and taping out/manufacturing such designs. I say "yet", because i think with the rise of FPGA technology, the "tape out" cost can be minimised, and hardware design platforms can quite easily be placed in the hands of amateurs. Who knows, maybe one day we'll see FPGAs as a real threat to ASICs, especially if we continue to see reduction in prices and increases in performance and functionality.
Another blocker is the nature of hardware -- hardware design is fundamentally different to software design. Software engineers can't design hardware. It also takes alot more time and effort to verify a hardware implementation of an algorithm over a software implementation of the same algorithm. In addition, there aren't as many hardware engineers that can dedicate their resources to open source development as there are software engineers. - zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I don't like make because a lots of Apple fanboyism going on there also. And they call them self DYI.
- scotticus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Q: What is open source hardware?
A: Your mom. - BigSlacker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I don't see much value in this. Software transcends advancements in technology while the hardware quickly becomes obsolete. By the time any standards get set, they will be too old to be of any use. There is great value in defining a standard API for hardware drivers but there's no need to know the circuitry to use the API. The firmware is what hooks the standard and non-standard layers together.
- sam991, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Q: What is open source hardware?
A: I don't entirely know but i'm guessing it isn't free as in beer. - jancewic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0www.opencircuits.com - perhaps one day we will have common blade server components...... probably wishful thinking.
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2A threat to capitalism and the American way of life? : P
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