5. Should registration be part of the certification process

The Open Source Hardware Association is taking input on the proposal for an open hardware certification in this forum. This thread is devoted to question # 5, which reads: “Should registration be part of the certification process? If so, should there be a single central repository or a distributed set of repositories that comply with base-level requirements?” For other question forums, as well as a general comment forum, click [here].

My vote is no. This would make the barrier to entry all the more difficult to participate in giving designs to the community.

It should be an option, but not part of the certification process. Where a project is legally restricted in some way, such as export controls, do you guys really want to be responsible for the disposition and distribution of such restricted information?

It shouldn’t be an obligation. OSHWA just need to make the process easy and clear.

Agree

While I can appreciate wanting to make it easy to find open source hardware projects to make, extend, or incorporate into other projects, I am not sure we need an OSHW registry. Over the course of my use of open source software, I have found that a combination of Google and the rise of open source software hosting portals like SourceFogre, GitHub, etc has taken care of any needs for finding project I have as a developer or end user.

So, I think we can pass on having a registration system attached to the certification process.

I don’t think it’s worth the effort. I doubt anybody is going to be searching for any random open source hardware project. People are going to search for an interesting project and then, in that project, they’ll check to see if it’s open source (if they even care).

Registration must not be a obligation, Having set of repositories should be good.

My humble Answer: “no”, no need of registration, it will be a nightmare.

Yes, at least for top level, this makes policing the certification license better to control.
But registration should be free of charge.