From PC World: Four years ago, Alicia Gibb was trying to unite a fragmented open-source hardware community to join together to create innovative products.
So was born the Open Source Hardware Association, which Gibb hoped would foster a community of hardware “hackers” sharing, tweaking, and updating hardware designs. It shared the ethics and ethos of open-source software and encouraged the release of hardware designs—be it for it processors, machines, or devices—for public reuse.
Since then, OSHWA has gained strength, with Intel, Raspberry Pi, and Sparkfun endorsing the organization. Its growth has coincided with the skyrocketing popularity of Arduino and Raspberry Pi-like developer boards—many of them open source—to create gadgets and IoT devices.
In recent weeks, OSHWA also met one of its initial goals: to start certifying open-source hardware. The goal of certification is to clearly identify open-source hardware separate from the mish-mash of other hardware products. The certification allows hardware designs to be replicated.
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