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While I realise that FPGAs are much closer to hardware design that programming is: delivering FPGA code to an FPGA to reconfigure it is still open-source software in my opinion. You've simply shifted what it is you're programming.

Actual open-source hardware (if you can indeed even use the phrase "open source" for this) would be distributing schematics of silicon chips online, so that anybody with the means to fabricate them could do so. I see this more akin to the "openess" of the 3D printing community. If technology to "3D print" silicon chips becomes available, that will be the turning point.




> If technology to "3D print" silicon chips becomes available, that will be the turning point.

I do see the point you're trying to make about cost of manufacturing, but there are already a number of "printable" circuits that a 3d printer can put together to build your own chips.

And whilst the kind of circuits I've printed onto clothes don't quite match full-scale chip production, it's an active area of research [0], so I wouldn't say it would be too long before it reaches consumer hands.

[0] https://www.machinedesign.com/3d-printing/3d-printed-flexibl...


Is this the kind of 3D printing of circuit boards you've been doing?

https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printing-3D-Print-A-Sold...


Similar idea, but rather than filling the traces after printing, I've been using conductive filament to print the traces themselves directly.




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