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An epic thread on "What's your definition of 'open source hardware'?". It's all new, no one knows - this is one the most fun and exciting times of a community.
Just some background, Josh is behind the very cool Stribe project and we've posted about it before (and again right before Maker Faire since it was there). When it was posted up we said "open source" project, but since some folks consider "open source" as something you can sell I added an update that said, it's actually non-commercial since that's what the Maker (Josh) wanted, no commercial versions... Well, this sparked off a very, spirited, discussion about what "open source" is. So check out the thread and comment there (or here) with your thoughts. It's all very new and it seems like a lot of hardware is now released under Creative Commons, folks are calling things open source hardware, open hardware or just not calling it anything... and some are releasing all but one part of a project. I think we're going to all end up calling things "Open Hardware" and then have some indicator of the usage... This is an "Open Hardware Project" with a "Non-commercial manufacturing license". Dive in!
Truly epic. I like the term Open Source Hardware, and I think when we use that term we need to stick with the Open Source Definition, which addresses the question of non-commercial restrictions in Part 1:
"1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."
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