CERN launches open hardware

Four months after launching the alpha version, CERN has issued version 1.1 of the Open Hardware Licence (OHL), a legal framework to facilitate knowledge exchange across the electronic design community.

OHL was created to govern the use, copying, modification and distribution of hardware design documentation and the manufacture and distribution of products.

Hardware design documentation includes schematic diagrams, designs, circuit or circuit-board layouts, mechanical drawings, flow charts and descriptive texts, as well as other explanatory material.

Version 1.0 was published on the Open Hardware Repository (OHR), the creation of electronic designers working in experimental-physics laboratories who felt the need to enable knowledge-exchange across a wide community and in line with the ideals of 'open science' being fostered by organisations such as CERN.