Putting out the hardware dumpster fire
I think one of the primary reasons that it is such a dumpster fire is there traditionally hasn&#x27;t been an &quot;open&quot; ecosystem in the hardware world, though now they are being forced towards that direction kicking and screaming.<p>Every part of the hardware ecosystem has traditionally been done in closed, NDA ridden environments and only over the last 5-10 years has that even started to change.<p>Designing chips has required NDA-based PDKs. Designing complex PCBs has required closed-source EDA tools. Interacting with any of the IC peripherals often requires binary or non-redistributable firmware.<p>Hell, even with the modern &quot;open&quot; switch architectures, like Trident3, you can&#x27;t get software or detailed datasheets from broadcom without an NDA. Same thing with some of the ARM based stuff like with the Raspberry Pi.