Re: Not "open source" hardware, "free design" hardware

[Paul Sutton]

On 03/02/2022 04:19, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > >   >  > Are you using "designs" with a different meaning? -- RMS
>
>    > >   >  From my experience the word "hardware designs" usually refers to
>    > >   > schematics only,
>
>    > > Does it include schematics of chips
>    > > as well as schematics of boards?
>
>    > Just a data point.
>
>    > From my 20+ years professional experience of an electronics engineer,
>    > hardware design usually includes schematics, layout, assembly drawings
>    > and instructions (if any)---virtually all documentation used to
>    > produce the device.
>
> That would be all aspects of the design in question.  It's the right way
> to do things.
>
> You've responded to the question Jacob responded to.
> You and he disagree about this.
>
> The other question I raised -- whether "the design of this piece of hardware"
> normally includes the designs of the chips in it as well as the design of
> its circuit board -- is important also.
>
>    > The layouts for a device is typically harder to make than its
>    > schematics; the gerber files (technically, gerber + drill files)
>    > are made automatically from the layout in its source code form.
>
> This suggests that a complete design for a board should include the
> layout.  But there is no crucial need to include the gerber + drill
> files, since you can generate them from the layout.
>
> (Is there free software to generate them?)
It may be a case sometimes that a chip is available from a manufacturer 
for end hardware designers to create their product but the schematic may 
be available under a non disclosure agreement.

In some cases there could be a good reason for this,  as there could be 
patents on a specific part of the chip,

I have hard of military specification components,  so with resistors 
these could be 1k resistor with a 1% tolerance.   For chips there may be 
military features, so the spec may be protected as it has features that 
give the military the advantage over others.  So the spec is available 
so that chip can be used in a device (lets say some sort of navigation 
device for rockets)  so clearly if that information fell in to the wrong 
hands it could be bad (especially during wartime).  An enemy may find a 
way to create a countermeasures device for example.

So in that case you would have chip designer -- > chip under nda --> 
device maker --> Military

A similar chip could be made, minus that special features which is made 
available for consumer devices,  in which case the information may be 
less restrictive, and the full spec may be available to every one

It may be that chip is made available _ spec to a third party so they 
can make consumer devices.

I would kind of assume that we would be looking here at consumer level 
hardware.

In terms of non disclosure agreements, surely the FSF has policies on 
what happens in board meetings, what is discussed and what can be 
disclosed out side of that meeting.


Paul



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Paul Sutton, Cert Cont Sci (Open)
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