It’s difficult to envision a computer that’s completely open-source—and I mean completely, right down to the software on its drives, the drivers for its components, and the circuit boards for its construction. However, Linux News has gotten its hands on one such device, Qi Hardware’s “Ben NanoNote,” and it’s one of the few massive hardware projects in existence that runs on completely copyleft hardware.

What does that mean? The hardware on the system is bound by the same common principles as the software running on it—anyone is free to modify the Ben NanoNote’s design or make copies thereof, so long as they release their version of the product under the same Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license as the original.

Qi Hardware already has a wiki in place where aspiring developers and tinkerers can brainstorm up new project ideas and uses for the $99 laptop. However, the Ben NanoNote isn’t designed for mass-market appeal. Part of that can be seen in the product’s specifications, which are hardly top-of-the-line components for a laptop—or even a netbook—nowadays.

The Ben NanoNote runs on a 366-MHz MIPS processor with a mere 32 megabytes of RAM and two gigabytes of internal flash storage. There’s no internal networking functionality on this 3.9-by-2.95-by-0.7-inch product, whose 16.7-million-color, 3-inch screen sports a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels. The Ben NanoNote does contain a full QWERTY keyboard, however, and it runs the 2.6.32 version of the OpenWRT Linux kernel. And, yes, it’ll even allow you to play Doom or Quake.

This isn’t the first open-source hardware project from the various members of Qi Hardware. In fact, the company’s roots are in the Openmoko project—a previous attempt to create a suite of fully open-sourced mobile phones (or at least, as open-sourced as legal restrictions for cell phone components would allow).

When the Openmoko’s phone project fizzled out in April of 2009, a team of developers and engineers founded Qi Hardware and shifted their goals from the mobile market to open-source hardware as a whole. The Ben NanoNote is Qi Hardware’s first such hardware design.

Read the full news at Yahoo!News

OSS Hardware

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and “board” files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric.

Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! – it’s incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (shipping over 100,000 units, estimated) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities – we think we’ve captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers – but since it’s open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, start a business, everything is available, that’s the point.

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