hello,

i'm a programmer and i have a 40h i've been making some apps
(max/msp/pd/software) for, but i'm no hardware guy. i find the homebuilt
monome versions i've seen here, for instance the tupperware monome, very
cool.

what i'd like to know is - is the monome hardware open source, so to
speak, like the software? has all the schematics and information been
made publicly available for building your own, from scratch?

it's all posted at http://monome.org/40h/kit

It's all open, and people here have been very helpful.  I really think 
this is what sets monome apart from most other equipment makers.  I've 
found the monome to be a great model to build my own device.  So far I 
haven't actually ported the firmware since it is so specific to the 
monome, but the overall approach they took is teaching me a ton about 
how to design and build my own stuff.  Plus the patches that come with 
the base 0400 build, like _howto_osc.mxb and _howto_serial.mxb and 
_monome serial.mxb have been great to learn from and borrow bits from. 
Seeing it all laid out the way they have presented it here answers so 
many questions before they even come up.