OGD1: The Open Source Graphics Card

Open source software was just the beginning, as we’re now seeing the slow but steady growth of open source hardware as well.

The newest development in this field is now accepting pre-orders — the Open Graphics Project’s OGD-1, a totally open source FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) development platform.

It’s actually not a graphics card yet, but that’s one of the many possible things it could be morphed into, and that’s all part of the plan.

The OGP itself has as their stated mission the creation of a graphics card that has entirely open hardware specs, and can be run with drivers that are equally open and unencumbered by patent restrictions.

The idea came into being after the open source community experienced continued frustration with ATI and NVidia’s lack of open source driver support, although ATI’s come about as of late and started working more closely with the community.

The details of the OGD-1 make it clear that this isn’t intended to be a consumer product out of the box. Not even close: it’s a fundraiser of sorts, created to get potential designers and programmers immediately curious about the product.

With a price tag of $1,500 USD for the first iteration of the kit, few people on the consumer level are likely to drop cash for something that needs to be programmed from scratch.

The card also isn’t aimed at becoming the heart of a monster gaming machine, either. The OGP’s FAQ is very clear on this point:

A graphics card is only one possible application for this device, and not even the most potentially interesting one.

Like the OpenMoko, the idea is to make something that can be bent and shaped — not just by end users, but by other engineers and manufacturers. Someone else’s endpoint can become your starting point.