At this point I would expect that there were open source cars, laptops, televisions, etc. But as far as I know there are only open source mobile phones. Why is that?
It happen because unlike software (programs) that is governed by the licenses (copyright) the hardware (physical objects) is governed by the patents, and mostly of the time these patents are share among several manufactures, and sometimes they are extremely ridiculous (you can patent practically any idea, no matter how simple and unclear it may be) that whatever product you bring out you have probably violated some of these.
It happen because unlike software (programs) that is governed by the licenses (copyright) the hardware (physical objects) is governed by the patents, and mostly of the time these patents are share among several manufactures, and sometimes they are extremely ridiculous (you can patent practically any idea, no matter how simple and unclear it may be) that whatever product you bring out you have probably violated some of these.