It’s open source if there is no proprietary tech, and every single components is replaceable from outside sources. I have owned several 3rd gen printers, and currently keep an Ender 5 Plus, heavily modded. I could replicate the machine without much trouble, and not running afoul of any laws. The whole machine is based on prior art.
So I make a pile of sticks, that pile of sticks is open source? No.
You are confusing using open source tools with being an open source project. Using open source tools is great as a user, but it does not make what you do with them open source, whether it makes the activity legal or not. Publishing the design of the tool to be replicable by others is what made that tool open source in the first place for you to use.
It is the difference between “I built this house out of bricks woth my open-source backhoe” and “I built this house out of bricks this way, and here is how you can do it the same way”. Neither one is illegal, but one is an open source project and the other is just permissible under the law.
Open source software only applies to software. Open source hardware, as OC mentioned, does not imply documentation, as long as all components are replicable, and readily available.
“Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The hardware’s source, the design from which it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications to it.” -
https://oshwa.org/resources/open-source-hardware-definition/
It’s open source if there is no proprietary tech, and every single components is replaceable from outside sources. I have owned several 3rd gen printers, and currently keep an Ender 5 Plus, heavily modded. I could replicate the machine without much trouble, and not running afoul of any laws. The whole machine is based on prior art.
So I make a pile of sticks, that pile of sticks is open source? No.
You are confusing using open source tools with being an open source project. Using open source tools is great as a user, but it does not make what you do with them open source, whether it makes the activity legal or not. Publishing the design of the tool to be replicable by others is what made that tool open source in the first place for you to use.
It is the difference between “I built this house out of bricks woth my open-source backhoe” and “I built this house out of bricks this way, and here is how you can do it the same way”. Neither one is illegal, but one is an open source project and the other is just permissible under the law.
Public Domain =/= Open Source either.
Open source software only applies to software. Open source hardware, as OC mentioned, does not imply documentation, as long as all components are replicable, and readily available.
“Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The hardware’s source, the design from which it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications to it.” - https://oshwa.org/resources/open-source-hardware-definition/