The Open Source Hardware Association recently their 2012 community survey results:
In February of 2012 OSHWA conducted a survey of the international open source hardware community, which received 2091 responses from 70 countries. These are the aggregate results.
A majority responded that they have published design files online for a project they've worked on:
I've been seeing the Open Hardware logo on more and more boards. With almost 40% having used the logo, I suspect that will become a majority in the next year's survey results:
Unfortunately, almost half release have released designs without an explicit license:
Creative Commons and GPL are the next most popular, but I believe neither are the best fit for hardware. The newer licenses specifically for Open Hardware, TAPR and CERN, only have 2% each. Hopefully, they will grow in popularity as they mature and awareness spreads.
I quite like that the top response for "Why do you use Open Source Hardware?" is "because of community support and documentation around it". A very close behind is "because I can refer to the design files to understand the hardware" followed by "so I can modify, repurpose and personalize it". That really is the ethos of open source in a nutshell!
Did anyone here fill out the survey? Suprised, either good or bad, with any of the results?
Cheers,
Drew
