By. Juan Guillermo López Castellanos (contributor to humanOS)
One of the things that the university forced me to write down on my list of “pending earrings”Was electronics. I learned something about semiconductors y microcontrollers in my free time at the UCI, but without ceasing to recognize that a subject as great and wonderful as that would need more hours of study than teaching and production allowed me in my student time.
In this post I want to talk to you about a term (or phenomenon?) That I came to know when I had time to delve into the subject further, and which by its nature is already extremely interesting: Free Hardware.
Free hardware?
Yes. As you are hearing it. It is very common for the regulars of our community to hear about “FOSSWithout going into much detail or paraphrasing Stallman 
It is the software that respects the user's freedom to use, study, modify and distribute it. Well, the concept of free hardware takes the essence of the latter, but applied to electronics.
Arduino. A suite of free boards for electronics projects
This may seem crazy or even absurd at first, especially for someone who moves in our context, where, for example, a cell phone, a DVD player or a hard disk breaks, and the most common solution (discarding that of buying a new one: - /) is to open it, find the problem and try to fix it. Or, failing that, have it repaired by someone who has more experience and who will basically try the same thing:
- Open the device
- Do an analysis of your electronic design
- Try to locate the source of the problem
- And somehow fix the faulty part
But perhaps this reality in which we live makes you unaware that as with software, many hardware products are protected by restrictive laws that prohibit the people who buy them from examining their circuitry, maintaining them, or fixing them… at least legally.
Explaining it in a simple way and making an analogy to the same thing that happens with the software:
An electronic device solves a certain problem ... 
through a design that was devised by a company ...: - / and most of the time that company is not interested in:
- That you can fix the device yourself when it breaks.
- That you know how it was manufactured.
- And much less! ... that you make one like it.
This is not an unfounded interest for them, on the contrary. By limiting the owner of these freedoms, the company "protect" the implicit knowledge that exists in the product, and creates an exclusive dependence of the user towards the brand in maintenance and support issues.
The intention of this post is not at all to criticize or accuse this way of seeing things. It is not about that, but to let them know that in addition to this (which is the majority) there is also Free Hardware, which is nothing other than (according to the Wiki):
“… The hardware devices whose specs y schematic diagrams are publicly accessible, either under some type of payment or for free
Cool huh? 
A DJ audio mixer… free!
The first car fully built following the Free Hardware philosophy
The same idea ... with quite a few differences
Any adaptation of a concept to different situations is accompanied by changes. And one of the fundamental reasons in this case is the nature of the hardware. With only this in mind we could easily realize that the four freedoms of free software cannot be applied to hardware. For example:
- A physical design is unique and complex. It is not only a matter of “have the design and now”, But the facilities that the design has to be reproduced.
- A device has an associated cost. If you want to use hardware that someone else designed, you have to make it first. This involves purchasing components, building the design, and testing it. All of that costs.
- Components are not always available. Depending mainly on the country. In some there are electronics stores, distributors ... but ... and in those that don't?
- There are many patents on hardware. You have a design of a device that is free. How good! But do you have a license to use that microcontroller on it? And this other component?
- It is a complicated production model. You need (ideally: - /) a design, simulation, production and implementation infrastructure. Not everyone can make hardware even if they have the knowledge. The environment requirements are not that simple.
- Today hardware ... is not just hardware. The age of analog electronics is long gone. Now there are programs that run inside the hardware. Not from a PC to access the device, but within the hardware components themselves. This adds an additional level of complexity to anyone who wants to reproduce a design.
Nothing, it is undoubtedly a very dynamic adaptation that continues to evolve. Even on the Wikipedia page that I refer to at the end of the article, there are a lot of chapters and headings to deal with very specific situations regarding this matter. Much more than when I first consulted her while in college.
The really important
What surprised me the most when I heard about this topic was how the philosophy of free software has impacted the ICT production and market paradigms, even out of context, which are computer programs.
It is really impressive, and who knows if in the coming years new applications of it will emerge in different fields, not only in computer science and technology, but in social sciences, education, the arts ... who knows?
In future articles I will comment on some free hardware projects that have helped me personally to learn electronics and that have given a lot to talk about.
More Information
You can get more information on Wikipedia's Free Hardware page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_libre
Source: humans