This is a trend with the potential to eventually change hardware as radically as the various open source licenses have changed software. Indeed, it’s already making changes — and the concept isn’t just being adopted by small startups either.
For example, one of the biggest stories at this year’s CES was the abundance of wearable tech products being introduced, with big tech players hyping them as the next big thing. One of the items introduced was Warp, a $149 open source electronics board intended to help developers design wearable products. It’s made by embedded hardware maker Freescale, which with 17 billion semiconductor chips in use globally, is no small player in the hardware world.