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SparkFun will be closed on Tuesday, November 5th to support our team in being able to go out and vote! Orders placed after 2 pm MT Monday, November 4th will ship on Wednesday, November 6th. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
We're big fans of open source, and we try to be as active in the community as possible - we attend conferences, give talks, write articles, and generally do everything we can to embody an open way of doing things. We're proud to be a player in an amazing, supportive (and growing!) community, and we can't wait to see the evolution of open source.
The Open Source Hardware Association hosts some of the most influential leaders of the open source world today, and they're very invested in building the open source community, as well as fostering a greater understanding among people who might not have a solid grasp of what exactly open source means or how it could be beneficial. For the second year they're running an international survey, the results of which will help them reach a better understanding of who we are as a community, why we support open source and how we use it, and how our community is growing and changing over time. You can see the results of the 2012 survey here.
The survey is open for one more week (until August 7). We've logged our input, and if you'd like to be involved in shaping the future of our community, we recommend you add your voice. As always, thanks for helping us support open source - knowing how many of our customers share our dedication is what keeps us running!
I've heard about these guys; to be a member I think you have to wear a fedora.
For the love of God, please allow me to middle click on links again!
middle click is working fine here
I would like to participate on this. what do I have to do to participate?.... let me know I'm inventor but no one wants to sponsor me so I prefer to give my invention for free.... let me be part of this.
I have always liked the idea. I think of the early electronics magazines and the Scientific American Amateur Scientist section of the1950's and 6-'s as prototypes. The the semicon companies like National and Analog Devices started publishing really great applications books to go with the data books. National had some Linear Applications publications with so many great designs that I practically never had to design from scratch.
You guys are pretty enthusiastic and seem mighty confident. I can not help but see open source through a more skeptical lens, as an experiment. As a long term business model we have a along way to go to see if it works well over time. And I wonder if it can work at all in someplace with the business practices - or lack thereof - of China or India. Is this all addressed at the meeting of the minds?