Re: [fsf-community-team] Free Software, What about Free Hardware?

[Alex Chekholko]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Franz Christopher <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I don't know if I am over-stepping my membership in this list by posting
> something out of the blue, however, I have heard a great deal about Free
> Software, but I have yet to hear about Free Hardware. Is there such a thing?
>

Maybe, depends what you mean.

> Thinking about it makes me think that hardware manufacturers would stand to
> benefit from Free Hardware, imagine, the hardware manufacturer makes the
> device and the firmware is free to be run for any purpose, free to be
> studied and modified, free to be improved upon and free to be redistributed.
>

Thing is, unlike software, it does not cost $0 to duplicate physical
hardware.  So do you mean a manufacturer selling a device that can be
fully used by exclusively using Free Software?  If so, the computer
I'm typing this on probably qualifies.

> For instance, imagine a Portable Media Player (it can even be called an
> P-MPFree, jk) that comes with the freedom to be modified to best suit my
> needs.
>

There was a player like that manufactured by Neuros.  They had the
"Digital Audio Computer" which was primarily an MP3 player, then they
had the "442" which was a media player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuros_Technology
http://www.osnews.com/story/12568/The_Linux_Twist_of_the_Neuros_442

>
> This is something I would purchase in a heartbeat
>
> Is this something that might happen?
>
> Where can I find more information regarding this topic?

There were some other projects in this vein:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_hardware

As usual, there is some "Free" / "Open Source" naming alteration.

> Does this sort of thing infringe upon the GNU/GPL in any way?

The GPL doesn't deal with hardware, so I'm not sure what you mean.
The GPL v3 does deal with hardware indirectly (the famous
"tivoization" debate).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

Hardware is covered by patents, not copyright.  RMS often goes on at
length about the differences between patents and copyright, because
this question suggests you don't understand the difference.

> I am no hardware expert, is this sort of thing feasible?
>

Assuming you mean manufacturing hardware that can be run with only
Free Software, sure.

If you're talking about something like providing Free hardware
designs, that exists as well.   (see the wikipedia link above) Most
notable, IMHO, is the OpenSPARC project.  Sun will give you the
hardware schematics/layout/etc for some of their CPUs.  But they are
not really of value to the hobbyist as the hardware to manufacture
such a CPU is very expensive.  Again, compare that with software,
which costs $0 to reproduce and which is very easy to modify with
rudimentary tools (software) that have a low learning curve (compared
to microprocessor design).

Regards,
Alex