Am I not understanding FOSH (free and open source hardware)? I have always dreamed of open source hardware but it has always seemed unshakeably and fundamentally reliant on for instance massive open pit mines mining all over the world in finite dwindling supply wrecking local ecosystems every element necessary for computer components, factories able to produce at scale fueled by an enormous amount of energy from god knows where, massive pollution and waste every step of the way, and every other ill of extraction and production which seems like it can only be handled by large scale industry almost entirely capitalist for the foreseeable future. Am I missing something? Is it a pipe dream? Even if we find a way to get to a point where we can sustainably and ethically develop any new hardware we need, won’t that require persisting in the mean time in the present capitalist paradigm physically? Is this just kind of a microcosm and reification of the problem of democratizing the economy anyway?
This is essentially a novel version of the “free as in freedom” versus “free as in beer” distinction. In this case not exactly about the cash value per se, but about the physical aspects and systemic realities behind the having of a thing.
An open hardware design means nothing more and nothing less than freedom to access, share, use and modify the designs. It is about ownership and reuse of the intellectual property.
Open hardware doesn’t change the fact that most hardware will still be manufactured by the same large corporations. It says nothing about the technical feasibility of amateur fabrication. It has nothing to do with the environmental impacts of a technology or the production thereof. It isn’t fundamentally a socialist paradigm.
For an open hardware spec like RISC-V, the reality of it is that the freedom afforded by the open designs is a freedom of large corporations to enter market with a competitive product without being squeezed out by a handful of established monopolistic giants. This is a positive thing, but it’s a positive thing with distinct limits that fall very short of any ideas of utopia.
Ok, so should we start making CPUs at home for example?
We already have enthusiast grade PCB mills and pick and place machines, how hard would it be to develop a cost reduced lithography and Chemical Vapor Deposition machines?
Open source is knowledge, if you open source documentation about proprietary architectures in depth and other knowledge like proprietary medicine and chemicals and mining tech and those chip manufacturing machines and etc, then everything will be open source, open source is basically open knowledge for everyone, maintaining and building (compiling) and developing (forking) is still up to community and that freedom is blessing of open source, since if some influential guy decides to shut down some platform/manufacture/business it can be forked by ANYONE and enshittification would be impossible in the long run
Well it’s the same as FOSS. The software runs on machines that, etc etc.
fundamentally reliant on for instance massive open pit mines mining all over the world
Grab your spade.
Go to your garden.
Dig.
