As some of you may already know, this year I will be co-chairing Addie in organizing the Open Source Hardware Summit (here’s last year event website). Aside from the obvious excitement for the opportunity, since a few days, in addition to the more stringent organizational aspects – which is to finalize a location and date, be cool we are getting there – I began to think about the program.

In my mind, this Open Source Hardware summit, would be a summit in which – among other things – we promote the meetup of companies with projects and communities, as today the companies themselves have a crucial opportunity to generate an impact.

Doing this reflection, however, I wondered if the open source hardware must be something that points more to the people, and their fundamental freedoms – as to have access to knowledge and to share it – or more to companies as a means of growth and increased efficiency. I myself have written, no more than a few days ago, that open source hardware may be used as a tool to conquer new markets if plugged into an appropriate business strategy.