I would not agree that it always is the only alternative. Freedom of the designs may add significant value to the product or even make it possible. So "stealing" and "closing" the hardware device will take that value away even if it has the same other functionality. Of course that does not apply to every device, but it is possible to find areas where it is applicable. Getting well paid for developing Free Software may also sound like a complete nonsense ...

Unfortunately it is a very common misconception that Open Hardware should be if not "free as in beer", then at least as cheap as possible. But even beer exists in "free as in speech" variant (http://freebeer.org/) and I do not think it is extremely cheap.

I believe that writing about "How to Make Really Crappy Lenses with a 3D Printer" is similar to advising readers to forget the normal GNU/Linux they run on their computers and make some DIY OS and run it on the 8-bit microprocessor. Of course, such DIY projects have right to exist, but I'm afraid that making people to associate _all_ the OH with just some cheap replacement of the Real Proprietary Stuff may be very harmful to the Open Hardware itself.

Freedom of the hardware devices has real value and can pay for itself. The fact that the FOSS (both software and devices that use it) is now mainstream (thanks, Bruce!) makes more people to be "spoiled" by such freedom and expect it from the hardware they are paying for. And that keeps us in business of developing (and selling) expensive (but Free) Open Hardware products for 10 years already.

Bruce, being an American open hardware company we seem to have now more customers in Europe than in the United States, so I do not see a problem combining American-originated GNU GPL and GNU FDL with European-crafted CERN OHL. Additionally I believe the OH is not yet as established area as the FOSS, different people on organizations have different understanding of the Open Hardware, it goals and specifics. We find our itch to have much in common with that of CERN, and at least at this stage I do not see a problem with increasing the number of OH licenses to fit the needs of different users. CERN OHL is the first non-US-originated license we adopted during the 10 years of our OH business.

Femto, ANAL, of course so I can not really help on the legal issues, I only can reply as an engineer who happened to run an open hardware company for more than 10 years. From the very beginning of our business we never licensed any products by anything other GNU GPL and GNU FDL, just recently added CERN OHL as it became available. Legal stuff is important, but I do not see a big problem in "gentleman's agreement" in the areas that do not yet solid legal basis yet. Our use of GNU FDL for the hardware documentation is also a kind of such agreement, and it did work for us all these years. Yes we do know of some violations of such un-enforced agreements by our clients, but great products and the user freedom that adds to the value, can do much for your protection.

We at Elphel are now using the new CERN OHL ( http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cernohl/wiki ) and believe it is the closest to GNU GPL we are using fro the sofware

That reminds me of a Watchbird by Robert Sheckley - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579