Open Source Hardware Success Factors

You only have to look at the success of initiatives such as the TI BeagleBoard which is low cost, open and has a cult following.  The key to success is that it is fully open source hardware which has enabled a much wider audience to get access to this technology fostering a cult following.  A number of BeagleBoard clones have been released based on the original design files which maybe add a few features or make it available in geographic regions not well served by the distribution network.  Big companies use these low-cost platforms alongside officially supported SV reference boards - reference board for getting official support,  open hardware boards for internal design innovation and prototypes.  They are also expendable! You can buy 10 BeagleBoards for the price of 1 OMAP3530 EVM for example!

The latest generation of devices from all major SoC manufacturers are so complex that bare metal programming is just not an option any more hence the need to provide software OS support in order to make them do anything useful.  It is clear that open source / community priced software and hardware must be very tightly coupled with good support for any new hardware to be adopted.

Good communications and visibility in the right places helps get the community engaged.

You only have to look at the success of initiatives such as the TI BeagleBoard which is low cost, open and has a cult following.  The key to success is that it is fully open source hardware which has enabled a much wider audience to get access to this technology fostering a cult following.  A number of BeagleBoard clones have been released based on the original design files which maybe add a few features or make it available in geographic regions not well served by the distribution network.  Big companies use these low-cost platforms alongside officially supported SV reference boards - reference board for getting official support,  open hardware boards for internal design innovation and prototypes.  They are also expendable! You can buy 10 BeagleBoards for the price of 1 OMAP3530 EVM for example!

The latest generation of devices from all major SoC manufacturers are so complex that bare metal programming is just not an option any more hence the need to provide software OS support in order to make them do anything useful.  It is clear that open source / community priced software and hardware must be very tightly coupled with good support for any new hardware to be adopted.

Good communications and visibility in the right places helps get the community engaged.