Private company
Qi hardware
Logo: This is a logo owned by Qi hardware, Inc for Qi hardware., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3
American computer hardware company based in San Francisco, founded in 20091
Qi Hardware was an organization which produced copyleft hardware and software, in an attempt to apply the Free Software Foundation's GNU GPL concept of copylefting software to the hardware layer by using the CC BY-SA license for schematics, bill of materials and PCB layout data. The project was both a community of popular open hardware websites and a company, founded by Steve Mosher, Jon Phillips, Wolfgang Spraul and Yi Zhang, that made hardware products.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
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Qi Hardware was an organization which produced copyleft hardware and software, in an attempt to apply the Free Software Foundation's GNU GPL concept of copylefting software to the hardware layer by using the CC BY-SA license for schematics, bill of materials and PCB layout data. The project was both a community of popular open hardware websites and a company, founded by Steve Mosher, Jon Phillips, Wolfgang Spraul and Yi Zhang, that made hardware products. Formed from the now defunct Openmoko project, key members went on to form Qi Hardware Inc. and Sharism At Work Ltd. Thus far, the project has released the Ben Nanonote, the Milkymist One, and the Ben WPAN wireless project to create a copyleft wireless platform. The examples of Qi hardware projects are the Ben NanoNote pocket computer, Elphel 353 video camera and Milkymist One video synthesizer.2
Products and brands
- computer hardware
- networking hardware
Listed on Wikidata.1
Timeline
- 2009Founded Founded1
Links
- WikipediaQi Hardware
- More imagesWikimedia Commons
- WikidataQ4047738
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataQi hardware on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaQi hardware on Wikipedia
- 3