
Open Source Hardware Is the Foundation Closed-Source Shops Are Built On
From Hardware Is Forever by Amtech
May 7, 2026 · 29 min
About this episode
Jason Kridner and Andrew McPherson discuss the importance of open source hardware in building platforms for other hardware companies.
ason Kridner, founder of BeagleBoard.org, and Andrew McPherson, cofounder of Bela and professor at Imperial College London, build the platforms that other hardware companies build on. Jason started Beagle inside Texas Instruments to give open source software a capable ARM board to run on. Andrew built Bela because no laptop could deliver the sub-millisecond audio latency a musical instrument needs. A decade later, Bela's newest product runs on a PocketBeagle 2, the company runs out of a resea...
People in this episode
Guests: Jason Kridner, Andrew McPherson
Topics covered
- open source hardware
- closed-source shops
- audio latency
- BeagleBoard
- Bela
- hardware platforms
Keywords
- open source
- hardware
- BeagleBoard
- Bela
- audio latency
- Texas Instruments
- PocketBeagle
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: BeagleBoard.org, Bela, Imperial College London, Texas Instruments
Products: PocketBeagle 2
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