When Open Becomes Opaque: The Changing Face of Open-Source Hardware Companies
When Open Becomes Opaque: The Changing Face of Open-Source Hardware Companies
Over the last 15+ years, innovative electronics companies have designed and released thousands of open-source hardware designs, creating a flourishing industry. Open-source hardware companies colle…
You're viewing a single thread.
It’s the cash crunch. Nobody wants to give away the fruits of their labor for free anymore, so the ‘open’ industries will start to suffer from IP lockdown. It makes sense right now, if you think about it
And it is also true that certain countries - China especially - don't respect open-source but are more than willing to profit from it while simultaneously undercutting those that paved the way for their own products. It's the same issue we've seen with non-FOSS software and hardware in the past.
I have to disagree with the notion that China doesn’t respect open-source hardware. Alibaba group just recently open sourced some of the most useful, including the most powerful RISC-V core to-date. Open sourcing processor IP is almost unheard of. China is pushing the RISC-V and open hardware envelope pretty hard. They definitely do still profit off of American open hardware, but that’s a good thing for the consumer most of the time.
error loading comment
error loading comment