[Open Design] The first draft of the Open Design Definition

[Aymeric Mansoux]

Hello Massimo,

Massimo Menichinelli said :
> I understand the need of promoting Open Source Software & Hardware,
> but this requirement is so strict that would make most of existing
> Open Design and Open Hardware not Open. It could be ok for a
> manifesto but not for a definition.

First of all if a manifesto has to be written, it must be matching the
definition. It seems a bit problematic if the manifesto says one thing
and the definition enables another.


> Arduino for example would be not
> open because 1) designed with Eagle (the most used software for
> developing hardware but proprietary) 2) manufactured with
> proprietary machines.
> And, furthermore, how many computers are both open source software
> and hardware? We should use open hardware notebooks for designing
> Open Design projects then, but basically there aren't available.

Once again, it is not because this is the way things are done *now* that
this should be the way to proceed further. What is the point otherwise?
We know where we are now. Where do we want to be tomorrow is the real
question such definitions should be asking.

Free software is what it is today because RMS pointed the GNU manifesto
and the GPL towards a near impossible future: a society powered by free
software, without compromises, embodied by the GNU operating system. We
can talk about the success and failures of his vision ad vitam æternam,
but one thing that is sure is that we would not be talking about open
design today if someone did not (still is) hold a strong radical
position towards software production or limit himself because something
was not available. As a matter of fact, the first software that RMS
had to write in order to bootstrap the GNU project was naturally a C
compiler.

So don't worry about what you do not have now, focus on what you want
tomorrow and that will tell you what you need to build next to be closer
to that goal.

a.
--
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