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> Then let me be clear. By "free hardware" I mean that the following is > available under a free license: > * Gerber files for circuit boards > * Boardview / gerber / design files > * Verilog files for making your own versions of each chip > * Built-in firmwares on chips must also be free. E.g. bootroms A gerber file alone is not adequate as source code for a circuit; it is more like compiled code. But assuming that the "design files" are the source code, then I think this is a coherent definition of "free hardware". I agree that all hardware ought to be free in this sense, some day. https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.html talks about this, and why it's too much to insist on for the short term. But many people say "free hardware" and they mean something very different, a much less stringent criterion. They mean "comes with the specs needed to write free software for it". I don't think that is enough to merit the term "free hardware". What can we call it? > (this last one is something that the FSF currently provides exceptions > for in RYF) I just modified https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.html to better explain why we make this exception, why for the time being we must. Also how to keep it honest. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
