Open Know-How (OKH)
Open Source Hardware technical documentation in an open graph database.
- https://losh.opennext.eu - browse the collected data
- https://manifest.opennext.eu - web-UI to create meta-data for a project
The most important files in this repo, in decending order:
- <src/spec/okh.ttl> - The main source file of this Specification
- <src/spec/otrl.ttl> - The source file of the Open Technology&Documentation Readiness Levels Specification (used by okh.ttl)
- <src/schema/okh.schema.json> - The [JSON Schema] for the (TOML) manifests, which are commonly used as the source files by the projects or project platforms to store/transmit the projects data, even though the real data is always the RDF form (which can be generated from these manifests).
The work here is based on the Open Know-How Specification v1.0.0, as released in 2019. The goal of the adaptations in this repo, is to change the OKHv1 specification to make it applicable to Linked Open data, and rework data fields after latest research results. This fork was proposed to the maintainers of the Open Know-How Specification as a new major version of the specification.
Intro
History
Since May 2024, OKH LOSH was adopted by its spiritual mother IoPA once again, as the now official successor to OKH v1. \ This was a great social and political achievement, with lots os arguing from OSEG, ice- and ground-breaking by Sarah Hutton from IoPA, and a final floud of good will and courage by Nathan from IoPA.
Since the end of OPEN!NEXT (see next paragraph), Open Source Ecology Germany e.V. (OSEG) maintained OKH LOSH - which was the most advanced and most active OKH version between 2020 and 2024.
Until February 2022, the LOSH variety of the OKH standard - which was the most advanced and most active OKH version until 2024 - was an OPEN!NEXT project, which was a collaboration between 19 industry and academic partners across Europe. Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program, this project seeks to enable small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to work with consumers, makers, and other communities in rethinking how products are designed and produced. Open source hardware is a key enabler of this goal where the design of a physical product is released with the freedoms for anyone to study, modify, share, and redistribute copies. These essential freedoms are based on those of open source software, which is itself derived from free software where the word free refers to freedom, not free-of-charge. When put in practice, these freedoms could potentially not only reduce proprietary vendor lock-in, planned obsolescence, or waste but also stimulate novel – even disruptive – business models. The SME partners in OPENNEXT are experimenting with producing open source hardware and even opening up the development process to wider community participation. They produce diverse products ranging from desks, cargo bike modules, to a digital scientific instrument platform (and more).
The work carried out in this repository is subject to WP3 of OPEN!NEXT ("Supporting production engineering with ICT infrastructure") and lead by the department of Information and Process Control at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology.
tl;dr
a distributed database for OSH modules: a demonstrator for a piece of ICT infrastructure to support design reuse
Standards are the backbone for this approach.
short & crisp
We are aiming to build the (real) Internet of Things – the Internet of Open Hardware.
Scope
tl;dr Q&A
What is the domain that the ontology will cover?
Open source hardware modules. \ A "module" is defined here as an assembly with a defined purpose. The scope/size of a module is defined by every project individually. On git-based systems, every repository represents exactly one module (except otherwise noted).
Who's the end-user you have in mind?
- developers\ the whole thing here is first and foremost about design reuse
- manufacturers / service providers \ find OSH published under a free/open license (we perform quality checks) so that you can modify, replicate and exploit OSH products however you like e.g. for cases of decentralised (mass) production, maintenance and service provision – or just for yourself.
What's the problem this thing is solving? Or rather, how does this 'tool' look like?
- It's a powerful filter for OSH. Find what you actually need.
- It's a knowledge base capable to
- answer complex questions like "What development platforms are mainly used among OSH projects that got certified by OSHWA or attested according to DIN SPEC 3105-2?";
- cross-link information (e.g. ongoing research with OSH designs (e.g. in case of COVID-19)).
What are use cases of the ontology?
- find the OSH that solves your problem
(→ linking OSH modules with functional categories)
- filter for license, certificate, functional categories, file formats…
- e.g. search for corona-related projects
- provide portable metadata: OSH can be published on various platforms
- facilitate packaging: essential files can be directly linked in the metadata so:
- we can run periodic tests to see whether files are still online,
- you can download those files directly from the LOSH front-end
- RDF enables custom use cases (e.g. for researchers or other OSH platforms) e.g. by writing custom queries or by linking to other data/knowledge bases, such as Wikidata
Who will use and maintain the ontology?
- all the awesome communities that provide the ontology modules we are using, e.g. SPDX
- first and foremost: us
- this ontology is yet to be presented to the Open Know-How Community; they may choose to endorse this approach as Version 2.0.0 of their specification.
Outlook
We want to organise open source hardware in a graph database.
There's a long list of cool use cases of such a knowledge base. Lots of information (including the technical documentation itself) could be stored as linked open data or simply linked together.
The future could bring e.g.:
- automated quality & completeness checks for the technical documentation
- unambiguous reference of all parts (e.g. to a library of standard components or to other OSH)
- automated matchmaking to manufacturers based on production metadata
- automated matchmaking with suitable finding opportunities
Technical details
How does the data-flow generally work?
Modules used
This standard
Developed and published in this repository here :)
- technical details of the Wikibase instance: https://gitlab.opensourceecology.de/verein/koordination/it/tickets/-/issues/43
- open standards used:
- The DIN SPEC 3105 (to be published under CC BY-SA 4.0 in June 2020) and the OH-TsDC define clear, enforceable criteria for technical documentation of OSH (+ a community-based assessment procedure in order to prove that)
- The Open Know-How Metadata Standard gives a first approach to organise OSH through reasonable metadata.
Can I see the ontology structure somewhere?
Our CI automatically generates exports from the TTL source. You can find:
- Markdown files laying out the structure,
- GraphViz/DOT graps/diagrams representing the structure,
- PNG & SVG renders of the graphs/diagrams
Note that when invalid TTL files are pushed, the CI will give back an error and no exports will be available.
Crawler
the crawler that collects all the data:
https://github.com/OPEN-NEXT/LOSH-krawler
Frontend
- the front-end of the LOSH system helps you to search the data on our Wikibase instance \ https://github.com/wmde/LOSH-Frontend/
RDF2WB
- the importer to push the ontology from any git-based project to RDF; necessary to set up the LOSH system: \ https://github.com/OPEN-NEXT/OKH-LOSH-Ontology-RDF2WB (by hoijui, IPK)
Want to contribute?
'til we have a proper contribution guide, just join our group on telegram :)
In any case, collaboration in this project must follow our Code of Conduct
Why are we doing this?
"Human history, closely explored, boils down to the history of invention of better tools." \ – Ernst Knapp: cultural geographer (1808-1896)