OSHWA Open Source Hardware Association
Contents
Self-portrait
The Open Source Hardware Association aims to be the voice of the open hardware community, ensuring that technological knowledge is accessible to everyone, and encouraging the collaborative development of technology that serves education, environmental sustainability, and human welfare.
The purposes and activities this organization aims to do are as follows: (1) Organize conferences and community events (2) Educate the general public about open source hardware and its socially beneficial uses. (3) Organize the open source hardware movement around shared values and principles. (4) Facilitate STEM education through the use of open source hardware conferences and other events focused on Open Source Hardware. (5) Collect, compile and publish data on the Open Source Hardware movement.
Many thanks to the hours of IT volunteer work by Kelly Maguire and George Shammas. Many thanks to Aaron Williamson at the Software Freedom Law Center for acting as our legal advisor. Many thanks to Per Andersson who donated the URL oshw.org to us for the good of the movement. (http://www.oshwa.org/about/)
Description
OSHWA was established as an organization in June 2012 in Delaware, with the aim of organizing conferences and events, to educate the general public on the social benefits of Open Source hardware, and to compile and publish data related to the Open Source movement. Its background can be traced back to the work of Bruce Perens, who in 1997 created the Open Source Definition, co-founded the Open Source Initiative, and launched the Open Hardware Certification Program, whose goal was to enable hardware developers to self-certify their products as "open." Years later, Patrick McNamara founded the Open Hardware Foundation (OHF) in 2007, in collaboration with Transversal Technology.
The definition of Open Source Hardware was made by Bruce Perens and a group of developers of Debian, who described it as a term to name tangible artifacts such as machines, devices or other physical tools whose design has been released to the public so that anyone can make, modify, use or tweak them.
The terms of distribution of Open Source Hardware determine that:
- Documentation must include all files and enable their modification, distribution and downloading online at no cost.
- Such documentation must clearly specify what part of the design is being published under the license.
- In addition to this, it is necessary to specify the type of software that is required, as well as approval under the OSI license.
- The license must allow modifications and derived works, alongside free distribution under the same name and without any cost. Attribution and derivatives must be appointed and must be free of discrimination.
Interview
Alicia Gibb http://dpya.org/en/index.php/Alicia_Gibb
Links
Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.oshwa.org/
