> I don't think hitting the market necessarily needs to be a point of open-source or open-hardware.

So what is the whole point if you don't want to be in a market?
Just releasing a concept is completely mute if there are no products, no pushing for the technology to be adopted.
It is like inventing a flying car, only not to actually make one. Yeah its cool you invented it. But... it is irrelevant if there are no actual flying cars to buy or use.

In order to move into it, you need products, support, something to drive people to move into it. That the people around them start using it, they start using it, more companies and more support, more hardware connectivity and more upgrade and support from different chip manufacturers.

Without any of that, it will be just like that cool replaceable modular mobile phone. Cool concept, irrelevant since it doesn't really exist. Did the idea drove anything? Did it have value? Not really. Anyone moved into it? No.
Same here. Why? Because no product existed to drive that market forward.

And just to drive that point in.
There was that company that made hand help little and terrible computers that did not last long not were any powerful.
But the did have a product, that sold a tiny bit compared to the whole market.
And it was the single thing that drove what we know today as a smartphone.
The palm pilot.
Why?
Because there was a product. They made them. They showed “see!? It can be done!”. And the market took notice, and to one company in particular. And the rest is our current time.
Do you think we would be here if it was just a concert with no application? Maybe but much later.