Catarina Mota and I put together an updated version of the annual Open Source Hardware Community Survey. Here’s a summary:
Our goal is to arrive at a better understanding of who we are as a community, why and how we use/make open-source hardware, and how our practices and numbers are changing over time. For this purpose, we are asking all those who use and/or develop open-source hardware to please respond. The aggregate results will be made publicly available after the survey closes. By publishing your responses, we hope to provide the public with insights into the practices and experiences of the people involved in open-source hardware.
Please help us understand the open-source hardware community by taking the survey.
You can also check out last year’s results.
Interestingly, most reponders last year identified themselves as “makers” rather than another very logical choice present there – “tinkerers”. Given that we are very rarely, if ever, work with raw materials and normally adapt things that other people made to suit our needs, I find it cuirious that most people still want to identify themselves with makers. Is this just hubris or popularity of the “Make” magazine or something else that’s redefining what “making” is? What’s wrong with “tinkering”, anyhow?
Open source = Buiding an active and supportive community. As the result last year showed, for the question: “Why do you use open-source hardware”, the top answer was Because of the community support and document round it. I, myself does not the ability to create open source hardware but I want to support the cause.