Open Source Hardware Today

The spirit of open source software means providing access to the source code, friendly licensing models and community support (documentations, forums and social gatherings). Computer and electronic hardware have always been proprietary as it involved large sum of money and required access to specialised machines and technology in order to design and build hardware.

In October 2016, it is announced by Open Source Hardware Association the rollout of Open Source Hardware Certification Program (read more). Hopefully it will help to address the long time conflict of patent law with OSS licenses in regards to hardware. That's right, OSS relates to copyright laws in almost all cases I know, but when it comes to hardware, most of it refer to patent law.

The most well known license for open source hardware is the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). CERN list their licenses, hardware repository and projects that use their license at http://www.ohwr.org


More projects on hardware can be found at
Makezine
Olimex
Raspberry Pi
Adruino

With the certification coming out, a growing list of open source hardware vendors and project, looks like the stars are shinning for open source hardware enthusiast and business.

Learning to code for kids

Here are 5 websites to start the young minds with coding. In no particular order;

Scratch 

Use of the famous programming blocks of different shape and colours to do coding. Adobe Flash is required for the web interface.

CodinGame

Use web interface to complete snippet of codes. This is not for the uninitiated. You have a choice of using the text editor Emacs, Vim or the standard IDE that supports several popular programming languages. This includes C, C++, Java, Go, Paskal, PHP, Python and Ruby. If you are looking to learn logics and algorithms, this is it.

Code Academy

Provides programming courses for free. Personal learning plan and quizzes with advisor are included in the paid subscription. Its starts off with learn to HTML and CSS.

Code.org

Place to learn coding with contribution from many difference sources. Some element of Scratch with specialised themes and gamification to learn coding. Lots of resources for lesson plans.
A sweet start would be Coding with Anna and Elsa.

Alice

Create 3D animations and learn programming for those familiar with the use of computers. This product of Carnegie Mellon University teaches C++, Java and C#.

Any of these made it to your your favourite sites?