Requirements for design reuse in open-source hardware: a state of the art

摘要

Making a hardware open-source consists of making accessible the documentation of the system so that everyone can use this design for its own purpose. It is an increasing phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the developments of the makers movements and the underpinning societal changes that are at stake today. However, poorly structured communities are sometimes struggling with problems inherent to the reuse of exiting designs. Besides, the exponential number of web-sites and platforms hosting open-source projects makes it almost impossible to properly find similar products or designs to get inspiration from. Design reuse has been an important practice in industry since decades. This paper looks for exiting design reuse research work and makes an attempt to elicit the main characteristics of design reuse identified in the literature. From this, we discuss the conditions of the application of design reuse for open-source hardware products. We conclude that a goal-oriented approach based on the basic principles of open-source hardware (right to study, modify, make, distribute) can be used to structure the approach towards a documentation that allows capture of design rational, documented product models and guidelines for documentation practices.