Pardon the noise. We've been banging around for a few months in our workshop, toiling away at our latest creation: What is open hardware?, a new resource page. And it's finally finished!

What's not to love about hardware? We use it every day. From the cars we drive to the computers we play with, from prosthetic hands to quadcopter drones, lots of things around us run on hardware of some sort. And like everything else, we believe strongly in applying the open source way to them. Sharing, accountability, and rapid iteration are all concepts that can benefit the hardware world.

That's why we made our new resource: to explain the concepts of open hardware to everyone. This is a link that you, dear reader, can share with your friends, family, and coworkers, to help them understand the light that the open source way sheds upon the making and manufacturing world. What is open hardware? details how the design, prototyping, and production of tangible, real world objects can be made open to everyone.

Like the other resources that we've published, What is open hardware? is licensed for redistribution and sharing via a Creative Commons license.

Open hardware eBook

In addition to our new resource, we've collected each article in our series from Open Hardware Week in February this year into an eBook available free to download:

"During Open Hardware Week at Opensource.com, we asked more than a dozen open-minded technologists to explain how applying open source principles to physical devices is shaping the way we work and play—now and in the future. They answered with so many wonderful things: flashlights made from lip balm, automated pet feeders, computerized guitar pedals, even 3D-printed prosthetics. And for a few dazzling days, we saw how that open world was becoming a reality."

2014 Open Hardware Summit

Need more open hardware? The 2014 Open Hardware Summit is open for registration. The two day event, held in Rome this year, is focused on the transition "From Open Making to Open Manufacturing" and includes a whole host of incredible speakers. Best of all, Day 1 and 2 are free to attend. See Rome, learn about the open hardware movement, and join in the other festivities at European Maker Faire Rome and Innovation Week.