Project strives to reach all relevant key players and stakeholders, to identify all possible obstacles to open-source hardware development, formulate solutions, and feedback inputs to those with the power of influence (policy makers, managers, etc.) therefore supporting them to coordinate the evolution of open-source in Europe. Further, project partners and related stakeholders will coordinate and support the community of programmers and developers directly, by continuing to organize get-together events (like the Free Silicon Conference), by overcoming critical obstacles (like the availability and compatibility of PDKs and design tools), and by creating the prerequisites to grow in a sustainable manner (re-usability, licences, etc). In all these activities, dissemination and advertisement on different levels plays a crucial role.
The project identifies the following objectives:
- Study and support (Communicating to the decision makers what is relevant to ongoing efforts of the open-source hardware communities, their struggles, and their needs);
- Direct technical coordination (Facilitating open-source community by organizing get-together events for open-source hardware communities);
- University coordination (Promoting and facilitating the creation of an international network of academics, which work towards the same goals);
- Maturity, interoperability, availability of tools and components (Promoting the compatibility/interoperability between technical developments and their availability by facilitating compiling and testing tools, the creation of shared software interfaces, libraries and repositories);
- Open Process Design Kit (PDK) (We will work towards releasing of an open-source Process Design Kit by a major CMOS foundry);
- IT security thorough open-hardware (We will promote the concept of hardware-security by openness, and we will put in contact the relevant players to create a pilot demonstrator of the open-hardware security approach);
- Sustainability, re-usability, hardware licence (We will work to disseminate the best available software tools, the best hardware projects, and the general philosophy and potential of the open-source world);
- Certification and standards (We will contribute by providing technical inputs, consultation, or direct participation whenever possible, to the creation of certifications by the relevant offices and standards by the relevant key-players).
