Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?

Aside from hardware there are the more fuzzy areas in the embedded/hardware world where Open Source can make a lot of inroads - anything from Firmware through to VHDL/Verilog designs for FPGAs.<p>The later is useful because it's more accessible in a way - you have a standard Altera or whatever board, and simply upload your design to exercise it. You can also simulate, debug, etc. This puts it on the software end of the spectrum, but ongoing wins here will eventually broaden.<p><a href="http://www.opencores.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.opencores.org/</a> is already doing some good work on this.

I have been very tempted to buy one of these..If you're interested in the Arduino project, you have to check out <a href="http://www.freeduino.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.freeduino.org/</a> .Contains a host of info on the Arduino board.

Open applications on an open OS on an open laptop... now all we need is an open design of a high-tech factory.

i have been wanting to see an opensource media player that can compete with the zune and or ipod. using android would be a good OS for it and make apps portable so the largest difference would be if the mobile phone was installed or turned on. my hunch is that an openhardware product that had the following might work REALLY well.<p>-small form factor ~ 3.5"x2"x .25" -flash based storage ( internal flash and maybe external port ) -bright LCD display with 320x200 display -wifi -supports OpenGL ES (nvidia tegra would be great) -battery -gps -bluetooth -wii based accelerometers.<p>nokia has a set of products that are a good start, but i think we could do better.

Now that I've read the entire article, I think the author makes the same mistakes that the Chinese ripoffs do. He's talking about the guys selling the $400 museum monitor going out of business because they're so expensive. But price is only a small part of the solution. I'm willing to bet that the mfr knows his market, understands their needs much better than the cheap newcomers, has a better distribution network and reputation in the field. It's really hard to compete solely on price unless you're selling cheap consumer commodity goods which this is anything but.

Open source software is appealing because it's free. There is a very low amount of commitment when you download the source for open-source software. You can sort of poke around and come back to it as you please.<p>Open-source hardware requires you to commit money (would have mattered more to me when I was a student), and a little more time to really get anything useful out of it. And when all is said and done, it is considerably more difficult to distribute your creation.

The combination of open source hardware and software is very exciting. Especially if someone can create viable home fab.

Is anyone else concerned that if all of the easy money in high tech is undercut then there won't be any more profits to fund continuing innovation? As neat as something like Arduino may be, it's not exactly cutting edge technology.

I live near NYC, I was actually thinking of taking their arduino class in two weeks. <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/190440613" rel="nofollow">http://www.eventbrite.com/event/190440613</a>

I like the idea that the internet of things will be built with a diversity of agendas.

"I hear the sound of a thousand business models crumbling."