I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.
Great articles and discussion, thanks!
I was amazed to read Stallman say:
"Copyright doesn't cover physical circuits, so when people build instances of the circuit, the design's license will have no legal effect on what they do with the devices they have built."
So provided someone is prepared to transcribe your device into their own EDA files, they can just copy it, modify it, commercialise it - without restrictions (like NC or ND) that you might want to apply? Can this be correct?!
Gareth
On 15 January 2016 at 17:00, Jason Flynn G7OCD flynnjs@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
And as another Olimex blog post makes clear - you won't get noticed or copied until you are selling thousands. And if you are noticed, then it doesn't matter what sort of licence you applied - you will be copied if there is profit to be made from the operation.
So why give your designs away in such a fashion? You only antagonise people who want open/free/libre designs, and you stop not one single greedy or selfish person! Go all the way towards freedom, and you will have a bunch of users who will make your stuff better with you, not moan about the license!
Kind regards
On 15 January 2016 at 17:00, Jason Flynn G7OCD flynnjs@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
Yeah, that's basically it. Physical, practical, functional ideas are only covered by patents. If something works, the fact that it works is not controlled. Copyright allows you to control the description that you fixed in a medium using some amount of artistic effort. But if someone uses their own artistic effort to reproduce the idea in a medium they have copyright on their own version. On Jan 16, 2016 09:51, "Gareth Coleman" gareth@l0l.org.uk wrote:
Great articles and discussion, thanks!
I was amazed to read Stallman say:
"Copyright doesn't cover physical circuits, so when people build instances of the circuit, the design's license will have no legal effect on what they do with the devices they have built."
So provided someone is prepared to transcribe your device into their own EDA files, they can just copy it, modify it, commercialise it - without restrictions (like NC or ND) that you might want to apply? Can this be correct?!
Gareth
On 15 January 2016 at 17:00, Jason Flynn G7OCD flynnjs@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
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On 16/01/16 18:03, Matt Maier wrote:
Yeah, that's basically it. Physical, practical, functional ideas are only covered by patents. If something works, the fact that it works is not controlled. Copyright allows you to control the description that you fixed in a medium using some amount of artistic effort. But if someone uses their own artistic effort to reproduce the idea in a medium they have copyright on their own version.
This is the fundamental problem with hardware licensing. The main open hardware licences (SolderPad, CERN OHL, and TAPR OHL) address this by recognizing that all significant hardware relies on its documentation and design drawings, which can be protected by copyright, and so the licenses protect this.
Trying to copy any significant piece of hardware without infringing the copyright on design documentation or drawings is quite hard, so these licenses work reasonably well.
Any license is not going to stop some cheap knock-off shop in the far east selling small volumes online - it's not worth the legal hassle. But anyone trying to sell large volumes through a reputable channel will have difficulty. Those channels won't risk being sued, having to bin stock, suffer reputational damage, and then pay compensation. Look how many years W H Smith wouldn't stock Private Eye for fear of such action.
Jeremy
On Jan 16, 2016 09:51, "Gareth Coleman" <gareth@l0l.org.uk mailto:gareth@l0l.org.uk> wrote:
Great articles and discussion, thanks!
I was amazed to read Stallman say:
"Copyright doesn't cover physical circuits, so when people build instances of the circuit, the design's license will have no legal effect on what they do with the devices they have built."
So provided someone is prepared to transcribe your device into their own EDA files, they can just copy it, modify it, commercialise it - without restrictions (like NC or ND) that you might want to apply? Can this be correct?!
Gareth
On 15 January 2016 at 17:00, Jason Flynn G7OCD <flynnjs@yahoo.com mailto:flynnjs@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm going to stick my neck out here as someone who regularly makes NC and ND contribution to the community. It's unhelpful and unpleasant having people class your work as second class because of some other peoples' arbitrary redefinition of the word open. There are a lot of greedy and selfish people out there and my efforts to put my works in the public domain are for then general good and not to fuel such people who offer nothing to society in return. It doesn't mean that my efforts can never be moved forward or turned to profit but it does allow me to vet the intentions of those that I let do so.
_______________________________________________ oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org mailto:oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
_______________________________________________ oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org mailto:oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
_______________________________________________ oshug mailing list oshug@oshug.org http://oshug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oshug
- -- Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett@embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20
On 16 January 2016 at 20:46, Jeremy Bennett jeremy.bennett@embecosm.com wrote:
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On 16/01/16 18:03, Matt Maier wrote:
Yeah, that's basically it. Physical, practical, functional ideas are only covered by patents. If something works, the fact that it works is not controlled. Copyright allows you to control the description that you fixed in a medium using some amount of artistic effort. But if someone uses their own artistic effort to reproduce the idea in a medium they have copyright on their own version.
This is the fundamental problem with hardware licensing. The main open hardware licences (SolderPad, CERN OHL, and TAPR OHL) address this by recognizing that all significant hardware relies on its documentation and design drawings, which can be protected by copyright, and so the licenses protect this.
Trying to copy any significant piece of hardware without infringing the copyright on design documentation or drawings is quite hard, so these licenses work reasonably well.
I'm not so sure. I forgot the exact price quoted, but IIRC for >$100 you can have a mobile phone sized multilayer PCB photographed out in China, with scans for each layer. Following which I should think you could have a design entered from these plus a BOM, for a relatively modest sum.
This is why copyleft, using copyright as a mechanism alone, will never be anywhere like as effective as when applied to software.
Any license is not going to stop some cheap knock-off shop in the far east selling small volumes online - it's not worth the legal hassle. But anyone trying to sell large volumes through a reputable channel will have difficulty. Those channels won't risk being sued, having to bin stock, suffer reputational damage, and then pay compensation. Look how many years W H Smith wouldn't stock Private Eye for fear of such action.
Indeed, reputation is the key thing here. Which perhaps also goes towards explaining why you see OSHW manufacturers paying royalties to original designers, when they are not obliged to. Although I'm sure they in turn also benefit from maintaining a healthy relationship.
Related to this, Bunnie Huang's writing on the Chinese "Gonkai" approach to IP makes for interesting reading:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297
Cheers,
Andrew
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Andrew Back -
Gareth Coleman -
Jason Flynn G7OCD -
Jeremy Bennett -
Matt Maier