Open Source Software or Open Source Hardware means, it is free and open for modification to the society or community. Open Source Hardware consists of mechanical drawing, bills of material, schematics, PCB layout, integrated circuit layout, etc., which are easily available for the community, such that one can easily make it - coupling it closely to the other hardware. Both Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Source Hardware are created by Open-Source movement, promoting inclusive development of technology.
Few examples of Open Source Hardware are as follows:
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Raspberry Pi
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Qualcomm Snapdragon
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BeagleBone Black
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PandaBoard
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Intel Galileo Gen 2
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Arduino Mega 2560
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Banana Pi M2+
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CubieBoard6
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Odroid-C2
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HummingBoard Gate
What is Raspberry Pi?
Raspberry Pi is the family of a series of small, credit card size, system on chip computers designed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Raspberry Pi foundation is a UK(United Kingdom) based organization working for the charity.
The main aim of the foundation is to spread awareness about computing in society by making the hardware affordable and easier to carry anywhere. The Raspberry Pi operates based on the open-source fundamentals, like it runs Linux (more than 9 different flavours of it), and its main supported operating system, Raspbian, is licensed under FOSS, which supports a majority of other Open Source Software.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation contributes to the Linux kernel also and various other open-source projects as well as developing software under the FOSS license.
Around the world, students use Raspberry Pi to learn programming skills, engineers use Raspberry Pi to build hardware projects, startup teams use Raspberry Pi to do home automation, many researchers use Raspberry Pi for real-time industrial applications.
The Raspberry Pi is a tiny, low cost, open-source, single-board computer hardware that plugs into a computer monitor or TV using HDMI, and uses a standard (USB/Wireless) keyboard and mouse to control.
It is one of the best credit card size devices, which enables every one (despite the age) to learn and explore computing knowledge. Raspberry Pi was launched on 29th February 2012, by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It was designed to "expand the awareness of computer science and supported areas", while the main focus was to provide computing facilities to underdeveloped areas, where they can not afford much costly computing devices.
Eben Upton, Trustee of Raspberry Pi Foundation has introduced the low cost $25 - $35 computer in the market to inspire children to work with computer. Eben Upton has collected a group of academicians, teachers, computer enthusiasts to start working on Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi has the following models available in the current market:
Different Application Area for Raspberry Pi
In the upcoming posts, we will explore more about Raspberry Pi.
