Re: gEDA-user: Open hardware talk by IBM at NYLUG (New York, NY, USA)

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> 
> On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 06:16:40PM -0400, Stuart Brorson wrote:
> > GEDA users may find this talk of interest:
> > 
> > Please join us the first week of May for a special presentation by
> > Dr. Juan-Antonio Carballo, of IBM Venture Capital.
> > 
> > "Spreading to the Edges: Growing a VC Ecosystem in a Multi-layered
> > Open Model"
> > 
> > The open model for solutions development is quickly extending from
> > software to other technology areas, such as hardware and
> > services. Specifically, just as open source has spawned a revolution
> 
> What is the open hardware according to this gentleman? Such a definition
> can be quite flexible, i. e. proprietary hardware implemented using
> undocumented chips with open-source driver or documentation.

Come to NYC and find out!  ;-)

Anyway, I'd suspect that a VC from IBM will have a definition of
open-hardware quite different from yours.  However, I shouldn't
speculate.  

I will observe that I recently had to spend some time looking at a
manual for an older Honeywell rotary recorder (like a strip-chart
recorder).  I was very impressed by the fact that a good 2/3rds of the
manual consisted of detailed schematic diagrams of the unit's
circuitry, as well as mechanical drawings of most of its components.
Also, I recall from my lab work 20 years ago that many instrument
manufacturers would publish schematics of their stuff in the
operator's manuals.  

Nowadays, I almost never see a schematic -- or any other hard
technical information -- in any published operators manuals, even for
extremely high-tech equipment.  (I *do* usually see 20 pages of hazard
warnings in scores of different languages.)  I don't think it's a good
thing that we no longer include schematics in manuals.  I think it's
part of the ongoing land-grab for so-called IP, a trend which I find
disturbing, and bad for society in general (although perhaps
beneficial for the individual companies who are grabbing the IP).
That is to say, manufacturers are working to close their hardware
designs as much as possible.  Perhaps Dr. IBM VC will argue that
publishing info about your hardware's inner workings is a good thing?
But I shouldn't speculate . . . .

In any event, I'll be interested to see what Dr. IBM VC has to say.  I
*do* intend to give him a gEDA Suite CD as a way to welcome him to the
revolution!  :-O

Stuart