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Gerald Coley @ Texas Instruments for EDN has a great article about open source hardware. It's impressive to see TI jumping in with articles and supporting projects like the BeagleBoard...
Many designers are familiar with open-source software, such as Linux, in which the source code is available to all. However, fewer are familiar with organizations offering open-source hardware. These organizations release free information, including schematics, BOM (bill-of-materials) information, and PCB (printed-circuit-board)-layout data, covering the overall hardware design. Designers with this information can build or add to a freely available design. In many cases, open-source software supports the original design, providing additional advantages. Some aspects of open-source hardware go beyond the sharing of the design itself. These aspects can save time and money for not only hardware developers but also PCB designers and fabricators, contract manufacturers, and even software developers.
Gerald Coley is a fascinating engineer. I saw him speak at a Beagle Board class I took at ESC in San Jose. He designed the Beagle Board (pretty much in his spare time, from what I gathered) and had a lot to say about the challenges he faced to get the board designed and fabricated.
I'd like to point out that the tools he mentions in the article, namely Orcad schematic capture and Altium layout, collectively cost upwards of what, $15-20k? This puts them well out of the reach of the hobbyist.
Gerald mentions that free viewers (and pdfs of the design files) enable someone to manually port the design to a tool of their choice, but copying a high density BGA layout by hand doesn't sound like very much fun to me.
This article highlights the need for universal interchange formats for schematics and layout! With a way to easily port designs between tools, we can use cheap or free tools (like Eagle or geda) without having to spend a month re-drafting an entire design, just to reroute one signal!
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