The expectation is that for apparently little practical benefit one would voluntarily submit to fines being levied on them if someone decided that they do not comply with their rules. Again, there are two problems here. Firstly, no reasonable person would accept these terms without a significant benefit (USB and BTLE certification, for example, actually provides a crucial technology -- there are no parallels here). Secondly, there is no practical way to enforce these fines worldwide. So the scheme will either fail because no one would buy into it, or fail because there will be no way to prevent abuse of the brand.

There's no doubt in my mind that the people behind these ideas mean well. I feel, however, that the motivation is less to do with concern for the 'community' and 'public' and more to do with reconciling the individual enthusiasm for open source hardware with the reality of people <del>benefiting</del> profiting commercially from your own work, which was given away gratis. It's a rotten feeling when that happens, but that's part of the deal. The licence is the license. If the realities of the license chosen are unbearable, then a different license should be used, or a different business/benefit-model be used. One can't both claim OSHW and then be picky about how it's being used.

OK, so I've let off some steam. Here's what I recommend for the OSHWA to actually do with the energy and enthusiasm they have after scrapping this certification idea. Create a place where the 'public' and 'community' can be easily educated about the signs of a genuine OSHW project, and its benefits. Provide a service for crowdfunding platforms and companies -- maybe even charge a fee -- for producing a report on products' 'openness'. Take the role of educators and enablers -- rather than be the 'enforcers' of 'compliance' violations by 'bad actors' -- and gain authority that way instead.