We are proud to say that we have now published all the hardware sources for the first version of the Parallella board on Github, making the Parallella a proper open source hardware project. The first beta version of the board will go out to early backers soon! We have also updated the detailed specification for the final Parallella board. This version will be manufactured in volume, with over 6,300 boards being shipped to Parallella Kickstarter backers later this summer. The new design files are in process and will be be published openly as soon as they are ready.

The meaning of “open design”

The definition of “open” in the realm of hardware and software has a long and contentious history. Instead of giving you my own definition, I would rather refer to the following pieces from Stallman, Creative Commons, and freedomdefined.org [1-3]. Our goal for the Parallella hardware project is to set a new standard for open collaboration on a global scale. Here is a summary of the steps we have taken so far in terms of “open” and “free” hardware to date.

Licensing: GPL/LGPL V3 for all major software components and Parallella FPGA HDL sources [4] MIT license for small code examples [5] Creative Commons Share alike license for Parallella schematics and documents [6]



Why Publish Now?

Initially our plan was to only release the design files after the Parallella board had reached production status. This way we would have the flexibility to make changes up to the last minute and we could “look professional” in the process. Holding early and formal design reviews with a select few critical colleagues is a necessity. The thought of sharing a potentially inadequate design with the whole world just seemed too painful! We are now quite happy with the state of the Parallella design and we could really use a few thousand sets of eyes to review the design and make it perfect! We have a small window to make changes to the design before the design files have to ship off to the factory. Today we begin the process of converting the Parallella into a true community based project. We look forward to your feedback and criticism. Any constructive feedback will serve to make the the project better.

Sincerely,

Andreas Olofsson

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[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[2] http://creativecommons.org/about

[3] http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW

[4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

[5] http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

[6] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode