Open Knowledge Conference

Open source hardware and Milkymist

While we regularly hear about open data and open source software, the physical foundation on which those rely is not so often mentioned. Indeed, open source hardware is only an emerging trend. This presentation gives an overview of the current status and projects in open hardware, and then focuses on the Milkymist project which is one of the most advanced to date, as it is shipping the first commercially available embedded computer with a fully open source microprocessor design. Various live demonstrations of the Milkymist hardware are included.

By Sebastien Bourdeauducq, July 1st at 10:00, Workshop II

Even though Sébastien loves most areas of hacking and open source, a large part of his projects have been around the development and reverse engineering of all sorts of electronic devices and embedded software. He joined the Prism54 developers’ team in 2004, authoring drivers and firmware for different, newer Wi-Fi chipsets for which no specification was available. He also took part in industrial projects such as the development in 2006 of the 802.11 embedded driver stack for the Wi-Fi smart rabbit called Nabaztag/tag. In 2008, he was involved in the OpenPattern company, which is working on FPGA-based open hardware network equipment. He is also an active member of the /tmp/lab nerd collective that he joined shortly after its opening, and one of the inventors of the “”Consumer-B-Gone”" ringtone. He is now leading the development of the oh-so-nerdish Milkymist open hardware video synthesizer, whose custom System-on-Chip (SoC) design comprises logic cores which have been reused in development projects by prestigious institutions such as the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.