There’s an article on Opensource.COM about Open Hardware:
http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-hardware
Opensource.ORG is the OSI, the group that maintains Open Source licenses. I’m unclear what the opensource.COM site is, except that Red Hat owns it, and it may be related to OSI. Regardless, the document is worth reading. OSI signed a MOU with one of the Open Hardware license orgs, OSHWA:
http://opensource.org/node/640
The Wikipedia page on Open Hardware also has pointers to licenses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware#Licenses
Firmware Security 