Providing a Platform for Open Source Hardware

As open source hardware and software continues to become more popular, it is hard to say exactly which ones are reliable and how to move forward with open source ideas and innovations.  As a movement of makers takes the stage as the new creative thinkers, open source hardware provides them with the opportunity to continue already started ideas so that a vision can be reached quickly and efficiently.  With this movement taking hold at a very rapid rate, one organization has taken it upon themselves to provide open source hardware innovators with a space to share and validate innovations.  This organization is known as the Open Source Hardware Association, or OSHWA for short.  The OSHWA takes it as its goal to neutrally discuss with users on open sources ideas and how they are available to makers to build an idea in an organized way.  This not for profit association wants to build a community of bright individuals that will work with each other to provide creative solutions to existing issues.

A community such as this is vital to the success of the open source movement because as any movement grows, some ideas could be shut off to only a certain set of individuals or, even worse, a fantastic idea could not effectively find other users.  If a credible space can be created for all ideas to be equally shared and provided, then an idea can receive input from a diverse crowd of designers and thinkers.  Through organizations like OSHWA, an idea could reach many difference innovators from a multitude of disciplines, thus allowing for creative teamwork.  When trying to build an idea, one of the biggest challenges is reaching out to people in different areas of study that likely have a greater knowledge in solving an issue, but this could become non-existent with an organized open source movement.  What the Open Source Hardware Association is doing will very much spark new and exciting ideas that the world has never seen the likes of.

post-4Sources:

http://www.oshwa.org/

 

 

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