OHANDA ONE sprout from the Open Hardware And Design Aliance (OHANDA), which was first drafted at the GOSH! Summit (Grounding Open Source Hardware) at Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta in July 2009.
The idea behind OHANDA was to foster the sustainable sharing of open hardware and design by transferring the principles of Copyleft to the physical world. During the GOSH! Summit the four freedoms of free softare were rewritten as follows to match them to hardware resp. hardware documentation:
- Freedom 0: The freedom to use the device for any purpose.
- Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the device works and change it to make it to do what you wish. Access to the complete design is precondition to this.
- Freedom 2: Redistribute the device and/or design (remanufacture).
- Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the device and/or design, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the complete design is precondition to this.
One of the first outcomes of the project was the concept to create a label or trademark and a free online service, where manufacturers of open hardware and designs can register their products. The label is attached to each copy of the the device and indicates that the four freedoms apply to it. The label also includes a unique identifier or key (the “OKEY”) that is a reference or link to the documentation needed to make a copy or derivative of the device. OHANDA aimed to create a public repository for certified open hardware and designs and their documentation.
When speaking out “ohanda” it reminded some people to sound like “wave” … most likely due to the Spanish words “onda” or “oleada”. Anyways, be it for that or just for doing the nice canoeing tour in this stunning nature, early on some of us came up with the idea to build a zero-emission open hardware vessel …
