Comment Re:OK, I'll Say It (Score 1) 140
However...open hardware is a fundamentally different thing. No one has chip fabs in their basement. So someone will have to pay big money to make the masks and tape-out and test the hardware. Unless some major vendor picks up the design and mass produces it lots of 100s of thousands, the price per CPU is going to be stupidly more expensive than an off-the-shelf CPU/motherboard or embedded system. And, even then, you are probably buying an overpriced, underpowered CPU just because it is "free."
I think you are more or less right, an opportunity presents itself here: Why is it that no one has a chip fab in their basement? Aside from the obvious difficulties this is a logical milestone on the way to open hardware, and not putting serious $$$ into the pockets of manufacturers, which did not base their business on manufacturing for hobbyists, but to make custom designs for customers who want to go to market as fast as possible, and thinking about how much it costs is only secondary to them.
