Our ace reporter Chris was at the Open Hardware Summit yesterday, and sent this report:
Made it over here, place is really packed so looks like there’s a lot of interest in the open hardware concept. Crowd seems to be heavy on artistic, technology outreach, grad student types vs hobbyists & traditional engineers. Some notable comments from morning speakers to add later. Kind of two themes so far – those making and sharing stuff without worrying to much contrasted by those thinking about how relationship with tech companies & ip law should work.
Much on my mind at the moment is dilemma of openess to end user modification vs cost, comparing for example the android phone i’m holding vs. A full kit of bug labs modules providing comparable functionality as a project platform – can open hw be as cost effective as repurposing mass market consumer hw, even though doing the later often requires relying on security bugs or left over debug headers to gain full ownership of what was supposed to be a locked down product?
Thanks Chris!