One of the topics that I think will come up at the Open Hardware Summit will be the latest crop of “Arduino-Compatibles” – some add features, others are just straight up clones. Open-source hardware allows you to build on top of projects like the Arduino and even make a business around it. This is why you usually see most/all the “Arduino-Compatibles” released in the same way as the Arduino (commercial use allowed). When you get all the goodness of open source, it’s customary to return value back. Sometimes the “Arduino-Compatibles” makers choose to put their projects under a different license than the Arduino, those projects aren’t usually adopted as much and I think they’re mostly ignored by the community. However, some makers usually see it’s more beneficial put their “Arduino-Compatible” under the same license as the Arduino and those are derivatives are celebrated! Please give a warm welcome the ExtraCore (Arduino Compatible)!

Dustin writes…

Since I started this project a handful of people have asked me why I picked the non-commercial license. The honest answer is short. I was hedging my bets and keeping my options open. Nothing more than that. This is my favorite quote:   

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” -  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I long for the sea. A metaphorical sea anyway. In my sea many, many people have the ways and means to make just about anything. You will be able to go to the internet and get plans that you can “print out” at home, or a neighbors house. The badly broken intellectual property system will simply be bypassed. I believe that day is coming if we have the guts to make it. We Makers are the vanguard of the next golden age. We can bring low cost tools for making to everyone. We can teach schoolchildren to learn and love science, engineering and programming just for love of making things.Things look grim now, so it’s tempting to hedge our bets and keep options open. Good gamblers don’t hedge bets. If you have an edge, bet. If not, walk away.

So here is my bet. I am betting on the Makers. I am betting on this project and I am betting on myself. As of today this project is Licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). I believe, in my bones, we can change the world.

ExtraCore (Arduino Compatible) An Open Hardware project in Duvall, WA by Dustin Andrews @ Kickstarter.