Pieter Hijma

Background

Since October 2021 I have the privilege to apply my knowledge as a computer scientist in the area of Open Source Hardware (OSH)1. With OSH, most think of 3D printers and Arduino boards and although the physical manifestation of OSH is important, the specification of the hardware is arguably much more important. Examples are the CAD files, assembly manuals, machining instructions, and machine configuration. Without these specifications, the hardware would not be open source. So, for OSH it is important that the specifications are accessible and available to anyone to study and improve the design.

Unfortunately, many OSH projects rely on proprietary software for the specifications, making them less accessible and available than is possible. In general, together with my team we are working on improving the Open Source Software ecosystem for Open Source Hardware. We are trying to achieve this from various angles, but I’m most directly involved in automating the documentation process of Open Source Hardware.

Last updated: 1 May 2022

Footnotes
  1. With Open Source, I generally mean Free or Libre, which means that software or hardware respects the freedom of the users of the software or hardware. Although Free Software is arguably the most correct term, the term Free Hardware is obviously problematic. Therefore, in my texts, I chose to use the term Open Source Software or Hardware, meaning Free or Libre software or hardware.