Tuesday, November 28, 2006

makezine.com: Owner's Manifesto:

The Maker's Bill of Rights

*Meaningful and specific parts lists shall be included.

*Cases shall be easy to open.

*Batteries should be replaceable.

*Special tools are allowed only for darn good reasons.

*Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong and not making special tools available is even worse.

*Torx is OK; tamperproof is rarely OK.

*Components, not entire sub-assemblies, shall be replaceable.

*Consumables, like fuses and filters, shall be easy to access.

*Circuit boards shall be commented.

*Power from USB is good; power from proprietary power adapters is bad.

*Standard connecters shall have pinouts defined.

*If it snaps shut, it shall snap open.

*Screws better than glues.

*Docs and drivers shall have permalinks and shall reside for all perpetuity at archive.org.

*Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.

*Metric or standard, not both.

*Schematics shall be included.