Putting out the hardware dumpster fire
I think one of the primary reasons that it is such a dumpster fire is there traditionally hasn't been an "open" 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 "open" switch architectures, like Trident3, you can'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.