Qi Hardware

Qi Hardware Inc.
Company type	Public
Industry	Computer hardware; Computer software; Consumer electronics; Digital distribution;
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Number of locations	San Francisco, Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Ben Nanonote; Milkymist;

Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Qi Hardware, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 8 August 20253 sources

Qi Hardware functioned as a developer of copyleft hardware and software, extending the Free Software Foundation's GNU GPL principles to physical devices by licensing schematics, bills of materials, and PCB designs under the CC BY-SA agreement. Established by Steve Mosher, Jon Phillips, Wolfgang Spraul, and Yi Zhang, it operated as both a corporate entity and a collective of open hardware communities.^[1]^[2]^[3] The company emerged from the now-defunct Openmoko initiative,^[2] with principal contributors founding Qi Hardware Inc. alongside Sharism At Work Ltd. Their product lineup featured the Ben Nanonote,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad nameCite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad nameCite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad nameCite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad nameCite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name the Milkymist One,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name and the Ben WPAN wireless platform,Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad nameCite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name which pioneered a copyleft wireless technology framework. Among the significant developments were the Ben NanoNote handheld computer, the Elphel 353 video camera, and the Milkymist One synthesizer.

Qi Hardware's primary period of activity spanned from 2009 until 2011 before entering a phase of inactivity. The enterprise was reactivated in 2019 under the new name Qiware. In 2024, its holdings were transferred to Phi, an organization with aligned objectives.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name

External links

Official website (archived)

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