Ask HN: What happened to the open hardware movement?
Around the 2010s there was a surge in projects that aimed to publish open (and often made for being easily manufactured by hobbyists) hadware designs. There were project in virtually every domain (cars, lab hardware, satellites, etc). We had amazing projects like OpenPCR, OSE, etc. The movement did not exactly disappear, but a look through most of the project of that time show most of time slowly declining, with still alive (in name at least) but getting minimal amount and not making much progress. I expected much more given the amount of enthusiasm back then. Can anyone explain to me why the movement underdelivered so much ? And I'm currently seeing a spike of open hardware projects these days: do you belive we are seeing a comeback ?
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Just spit-balling here, but writing software can be pretty non-capital intensive. You need a computer, and your time. Hardware costs money. You need to buy tools. You spend money on raw materials. Spend more time and money to turn those raw materials in components. Spend more time assembling the parts. Find out there is an issue with widget A not working with widget B. Redesign B, buy its raw materials, have it machined again. Finally build first prototype after 6 weeks. Discover its flaws. Spend some more money to iterate. Wait another 6 weeks. Oh, and manufacturer Z says part C is a last-time buy. Would you want to buy 5,000 units now?