Open hardware as an experimental commercialization strategy: challenges and potentialities

This article discusses recent knowledge transfer (KT) case of CERN flagship open source hardware (OSH) technology commercialisation for high frequency trading time stamping purposes. The case seems at first sight as KT success story par excellence: it enables viable business model without eroding market prices, increases the industrial innovation adoption clock-speed, and the technical complexity and operational importance of the adopted technology are high. However, questions of development community engagement, and sustainability of the core OSH technology and infrastructure resourcing models are raised, as they are of essence and actuality for the fast-growing CERN OHS community

Is Open Hardware Worthwhile? Learning from Thales' Experience with RISC-V

Overview In this article we frame the concept of a hardware-rich open source ecosystem (H-ROSE) that generates software and hardware components. In an H-ROSE, the designs of some components are accessible under open source licenses, while other component designs remain proprietary. We describe seven adoption factors used by the multinational French firm Thales to assess the efficacy of RISC-V to design processors. Other companies can use these adoption factors to explore whether an open hardware initiative supported by an H-ROSE is worthwhile.Peer reviewe

Open hardware as an experimental innovation platform : preliminary research questions and findings

International audienceIn this article, we explore the concept of Open Hardware (OH) as an experimental innovation platform to take a first step in the study of the institutional and sociotechnical conditions for fostering and advancing Free and Open Source projects at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN. For our purposes, OH will be described as a highly adaptable platform for present and future research infrastructures. As part of the contemporary movement for “Open Science,” OH will be examined with respect to its actual and potential contributions to the development of common tools and infrastructures for large-scale scientific collaborations. The primary data we use was gathered by the CERN Knowledge Transfer group in October 2016 through an online survey in addition to face-to-face interviews. Our preliminary findings point to the need for establishing different modes of institutional support beyondCERN and outside the hobbyist market to help advance cultures of collaborative hardware development in the sciences