Session Title: Documentation
Date: March 23.
Attendees (who was there?): Jeffrey Warren, Yuenyong Nilsiam, Tobias Wenzel, Dorn Cox, Rafael Peretti Pezzi
Overview of topic (3-6 sentences): Documentation is often the real “source code” of open hardware in that it is required for an open source hardware project to be built and re-built.
Notes:
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Rafael from CTA in Brasil: Creating a methodology for documentation: Hyperobject (check chapter 8 for this concept)
- They will be holding the Hardware Liberation Hackathon to help document existing projects that people are willing to share
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Tobias: Created a platform for open source hardware documentation: Docubricks
- Modular structured documentation platform that tries to be general without being overbearing
- Brick is the basic element of the modular structure
- A name field describes the purpose of the “brick”
- Step by step section or customized instructions
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Kaspar: Kitnic.it
- Platform to share circuit designs in a uniform way that allows people to easily replicate projects.
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Yuenyong from the University of Michigan: in their research group the say “if it’s not documented it didn’t happen”
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Dorn Cox: Working on a couple of platforms:
- Farm Hack: for documenting farming technology
- Farm OS: also linking to sensor data
- structure is wiki based
- interested in working together to figure out cross polination between platforms
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Jeffrey from Public Lab and VP of OSHWA:
- People cast a pretty narrow net on what OSHW means
- Openness can be part of the design process: built into the design
- On public lab stories and people are starting to become a focal point
- Is there a Canonical design for something? E.g. the best chair.
- Public lab are working on re-usable Javascript widgets to try and get over the issues of Wikis (they are not welcoming to everyone)
#How do you do version control on your platforms?
- Docubricks: versioning is not built in yet but is planned. XML documentation files can be put into Git
- Kitnic.it: Not interface yet but git backed with planned support in the interface
#How can we improve attribution?
- Kaspar: Not really sure but an interesting concept is the three dimensional printing open source license where you embed an attribution mark into the license:
- Tobey: Attribution isn’t even the biggest problem, the problem is that people don’t even give feedback when they replicate
- On public lab people are encouraged to post their replication
#How do we invite people to “own” projects other people created?
Tobias:
- In docubricks the answer is the modularity and helping people document re-building.
Dorn:
- Have been experimenting with what are the minimal fields.
- Also a mobile application for doing photo documentation and
#Outcomes
Come together again during GOSH to figure out cross pollination between different platforms and solutions.