The Widget Foundry is a loose knit group of people from all around the world who have come together to give the world open technology. We truly do feel that technology makes life easier and better. As most of us come from a technical background, we search for or create widgets that make our lives more productive. The Widget Foundry is a means to share those widgets and useful pieces of information with the rest of the world.
What is Open Technology?
I am sure that many of you know that Open Source Software is software whose source code is freely available (most of the time Open Source Software is released free of charge as well). This means that you can examine the underlying technology behind a product and make it better or change it in a way that suits you. You don't just get a product, you get the design schematics. Another recently coined term is that of Open Hardware. It is similar in concept to Open Source except that the products are mechanical parts or electronics systems.
Since this site deals with many different projects including software, electronics, woodworking, and home improvement, it only makes sense to have one term encompassing everything that appears on this site: "Open Technology". Open as in free to take a look at the insides, rip it apart and put it back together differently or the same. This is what The Widget Foundry is all about.
The projects, plans, and information given here are in many ways just as good if not better than commercial equivalents (assuming there are commercial substitutes). Many open products like Linux and Plone are the same way. They could be marketable products if we so chose to go that route. However, we want to give back to the community so that is why the information on this site is free. This website is an outlet that allows us to share our creations with the world and allow others to use them.
Many people that contribute to this site are professional engineers. Most enjoy building and tinkering as a hobby as well as work, and put as much time into the development of a project listed here as they do for projects at work. We hope to inspire up and coming inventors and give people technology that increases their productivity or makes life more enjoyable. We encourage you to take a thorough look at the projects offered here. If you find any problems with them, or wish to provide suggestions for improvements, please let us know by contacting .
We are always looking for new ideas and projects. If you have done a project and have no means of publishing it, we would be happy to put it on the site. If you would like to contribute a project or article to The Widget Foundry, please send a an email containing a detailed description of the project to . We will contact you for further information. If you would like to contribute to an existing project, contact and we will get you going. We are always needing more technical folks, but we desperately need people to do documentation, testing, write ups, and less glamorous tasks.
Licensing
Licensing is always a tricky issue. There is always a balance with open technology on whether or not to allow pieces in the inclusion of commercial works. For example, some of us despise the GPL because we can't use software libraries in internal applications for work, much less commercially sold applications. On the other hand, there are some things that we do not wish to be sold commercially. So, each project has it's own license attached with it. However, we will garauntee that each license will not restrict the use of any technology presented on this site for open source and open hardware technology projects. If you want to modify, change, add-on, remove, or combine technologies here and publish the result openly, we encourage you to do it. We just ask that you give credit where credit is due and not take work presented here and claim it as your own. A link back to here would also be appreciated if you publish a creation that uses some of our technology.
Disclaimer
This is one of those unfortunate things that comes with publishing content, especially information on how to build things. I don't know how many stupid things I have done over the years. However, if I cut myself with a box cutter, it's my own fault. I don't go out and try to sue the manufacturer or magazine I got the plans for the project from. That's just downright mean. However, we live in a world where some people are downright mean which leads us to put the following paragraph up. Please read it very carefully.
Disclaimer of Liability: With respect to documents available from this website, neither The Widget Foundry nor any of its members, makes any warranty, express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.