Last weekend was the Open Hardware Summit in Philadelphia, and the attendees were nearly entirely people who build Open Source Hardware. The definition of Open Source Hardware has been around for a while, but without a certification process, the Open Hardware movement has lacked the social proof required of such a movement; there is no official process to go through that will certify hardware as open hardware, and there technically isn’t a logo you can slap on a silkscreen layer that says your project is open hardware.

Now, the time has come for an Open Hardware Certification. At OHSummit this weekend, the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) announced the creation of a certification process for Open Source Hardware.

Open Hardware is well defined, but as with any kind of license, there are questions about what happens when things that aren’t open hardware are integrated into a project. The largest problem facing any Open Hardware project is the parts outside of the creator’s control.

Open Source Hardware Certification Version 1
http://www.oshwa.org/2015/09/19/open-source-hardware-certification-version-1/

This is version 1 of an official certification for open source hardware housed in the Open Source Hardware Association. It outlines the purpose and goals of such a certification, and establishes the mechanisms for the operation of the certification process itself.

Primary Goals

Make it easier for the public to identify open source hardware.
Expand the reach of open hardware by making it easier for newer members to join the open source hardware community.

Please send me an email if interested. Kudos!

When we came up with Arduino, one of the things we decided very early on was that we wanted to release the hardware design files so that people could make their own versions or just make an exact copy if they couldn’t find boards where they lived.
I think we contributed to popularize the concept of open source hardware and we can see it from the huge amount of variations of Arduino-compatible devices being released every day.

After the platform started to become popular we had the issue of figuring out a business model to sustain our work and keep innovating the project.

The good folks at Adafruit have shared some exciting news. Their own Limor “Ladyada” Fried is up for the prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” title awarded by Entrepreneur Magazine.

If you are not familiar with open-source hardware and software company Adafruit, it was founded by Limor about seven years ago and is on a mission to educate and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. It has grown to 25 employees and $4.5 million in 2011 revenue, placing Limor in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “established entrepreneur” category.