Re:Ask HN: Why hasn't there been open source hardware?
by dragonwriter on Friday June 19, 2015 @07:14PM
(#9748245)
> Why hasn't there been a viable open source hardware project?
Because hardware isn't like software, its got longer cycle times, higher capital investments to work with it, etc., which means:
(1) You can't get lots of contributors,
(2) Even once the design's done, you've got to get someone to build it -- which takes a substantial capital investment, and the people making those investments are more able to recoup them when there is a barrier keeping other people out from identical replacements, which doesn't exist with open source.
If automated manufacturing ever gets to the point where a fabricating device that takes in cheap raw materials and prints out computers is something that is no further out of reach that a decent development PC is now -- or even, was in the 1990s -- then open source hardware will be a lot more common.
Because hardware isn't like software, its got longer cycle times, higher capital investments to work with it, etc., which means:
(1) You can't get lots of contributors, (2) Even once the design's done, you've got to get someone to build it -- which takes a substantial capital investment, and the people making those investments are more able to recoup them when there is a barrier keeping other people out from identical replacements, which doesn't exist with open source.
If automated manufacturing ever gets to the point where a fabricating device that takes in cheap raw materials and prints out computers is something that is no further out of reach that a decent development PC is now -- or even, was in the 1990s -- then open source hardware will be a lot more common.