[cc-community] Open Hardware Licence

Greg London email at greglondon.com
Thu May 7 17:02:39 EDT 2009


> Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 16:40:15 +0100
> From: Alan Cox <alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [cc-community] Open Hardware Licence
> To: cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
> Cc: email at greglondon.com
> Message-ID: <20090507164015.6b391b4c at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>> If you want copyleft style protection on hardware code
>> I think you need to use APSL. If you use anything else,
>> you're pretty much putting it in the public domain
>> because most licenses don't trigger because the source
>> code is never distributed by the vendor.
>
> The AGPLv3 addresses it for software in some cases but not generally-

I contacted FSF a year or two ago about using AGPLv3 for hardware.
The wording of AGPLv3 is explicit about software used for webhosting,
the host making modifications, the modifications being held private,
and that copyleft applies to that specific instance.

Not really applicable to a similar but different problem like hardware.

They did not recommend using AGPLv3 for hardware, which was what
I expected. I asked if they had any licenses that would cover
open hardware or if they might consider making a new license
that covered open hardware. They said "no", and spent a whole
lot of time explaining to me why I shouldn't call it "open"
hardware instead of calling it "free", which soooo missed the point.


> however I would strongly suggest talking to an IP expert before trying to
> apply any of the software licences to non software - they can blow up in
> spectacular ways.

APSL uses generic language. Any derivative must be made public
and must be copylefted with teh APSL license. This was intended
to fill the "hole" with web server software, but by prohibiting
private derivatives, it also works with hardware source code.

Richard Stallman seems to be attached to "private derivatives"
that are not subject to copyleft. Probably because his business
model runs off of having everyone who works on his code assign
rights to him, which he can then create derivatives of, and
sell to someone under a non-copyleft license.

So, (1) I wouldn't hold my breath for FSF to come out with
a "no private derivatives" license like APSL and (2) I would
take any of FSF's advice on such a license with a grain of salt,
because they're not going to like something that conflicts with
their income.






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