right on - now take this to some DARPA PMs, convince them of the national security risk inherent in closed hardware that almost always comes from abroad and is for all sorts of military/infrastructure things. if they end up making a program, you'll have a fairly solid if not bureaucratic funding to bootstrap your puri.sm analog.
Very interesting I always used Creative commons for hardware, is CC in its variations not good enough for hardware? I have seen sparkfun designs with CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
Now all we need is the open hardware itself. Private manufacturers simply don't have any incentive for this. It has to be state or non-profit funded, but those have problems with attracting and retaining talent, as well as the existing IP issues. Any open hardware will likely face IP lawsuits and WTO sanctions.