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Open hardware is the hardware that is designed and distributed in very similar way as free software. Since hardware cannot be easily copied as software, its distribution includes manufacturing. It is not possible to download hardware from the net and copy it easily. Richard Stallman gave nice comment for the Linux Today magazine:
"Circuits cannot be copylefted because they cannot be copyrighted. Definitions of circuits written in HDL (hardware definition languages) can be copylefted, but the copyleft covers only the expression of the definition, not the circuit itself. Likewise, a drawing or layout of a circuit can be copylefted, but this only covers the drawing or layout, not the circuit itself. What this means is that anyone can legally draw the same circuit topology in a different-looking way, or write a different HDL definition which produces the same circuit. Thus, the strength of copyleft when applied to circuits is limited. However, copylefting HDL definitions and printed circuit layouts may do some good nonetheless.
It is probably not possible to use patents for this purpose either. Patents do not work like copyrights, and they are very expensive to obtain.
Whether or not a hardware device's internal design is free, it is absolutely vital for its interface specifications to be free. We can't write free software to run the hardware without knowing how to operate it."
The term usually means that information about the hardware is open to all. This would include the hardware design (i.e.schematics, bill of materials and PCB layout data), as well as a FOSS approach to the software that drives the hardware. Thus, all necessary files are licensed according to GNU GPL and compatible licenses. Two images below show examples of free diagrams for open source cameras developed and manufactured by the company Elphel.
There is a significant increase of open source hardware projects, sites, companies that in some way are related with the development, design, manufacture and distribution of open source hardware. Some of them (i.e. company Genesi) focus on a specific technology such as PowerPC while some others are entirely based on free software and open source hardware solutions. Projects like Opencores and Opencollector gather software and hardware developers to share their work and foster collaboration and use.
Indeed, very important effort is RepRap which developed general-purpose 3D printer that not only could be used to make structures and functional components for open design projects but is an open-source project itself. RepRap is also being designed with the ability to make copies of itself.
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