I just received the following from MAKE Zine via Email:

=Citizen Engineers=

MAKE presented at HOPE (Hackers on a Planet Earth) http://www.hopenumbersix.net/>, and our session was about all the things you’re not supposed to do (but want to) with the gadgets that fill our drawers and shelves. How to transform an old VCR into an automatic cat feeder, use open interfaces to control Roomba robotic vacuums, and on and on.

Projects like these (and others, such as WRT54G hacking, iPod Linux, car-computer hacking, etc.) are part of a growing trend where consumers are going back and hacking what they buy. Just as computer hacking is closely tied to the open source software movement, so can gadget-hacking lead to an open source hardware movement.

While open source software is pretty well known (Apache, Firefox, etc.), open
source hardware is relatively new, but only in the technology arena. Recipes,
how-tos, and building plans have been around since makers have made things.
What IS new is the ability to quickly share projects–wikis, Flickr, YouTube,
and sites like Instructables are the first indicators of a “learning and sharing”
trend. Open source hardware and these new sites might be the start of an ultimate global reuse library for how we build things, document projects, and share the next generation of “recipes.”

Interested in joining the open source hardware movement? Join our group over on Instructables, where you can view and share projects with other makers of all kinds.
http://www.instructables.com/group/make/>

More information about P2P and Open Design is available via the P2P Wiki.