This is essentially a novel version of the “free as in freedom” versus “free as in beer” distinction. In this case not exactly about the cash value per se, but about the physical aspects and systemic realities behind the having of a thing.

An open hardware design means nothing more and nothing less than freedom to access, share, use and modify the designs. It is about ownership and reuse of the intellectual property.

Open hardware doesn’t change the fact that most hardware will still be manufactured by the same large corporations. It says nothing about the technical feasibility of amateur fabrication. It has nothing to do with the environmental impacts of a technology or the production thereof. It isn’t fundamentally a socialist paradigm.

For an open hardware spec like RISC-V, the reality of it is that the freedom afforded by the open designs is a freedom of large corporations to enter market with a competitive product without being squeezed out by a handful of established monopolistic giants. This is a positive thing, but it’s a positive thing with distinct limits that fall very short of any ideas of utopia.