Computer programmers, engineers and all those folks attached with the computer industry are aware of open source software and its associated benefits. Open-source softwares allows programmers to modify the existing code based on their needs and even redistribute modified versions with or without attribution depending upon the open source software license agreement. With open source hardware, engineers will be able to copy, modify existing open source hardware designs. This will remarkably reduce the time engineers spend in reinventing the wheel. Not only that, engineers would be able to redistribute those modified designs under open source hardware license. This is an excellent idea but it will take some time to gain maturity. The core of open source hardware statement is:
Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The future open source hardwares will be designed using materials, components, infrastructure, processes etc. that are available readily in the market especially in the open source software or hardware domain. The open source hardware logo is not final yet. Maybe we will see some changes in the upcoming years.
Source:
http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW
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