[cc-community] Open Hardware Licence

Greg London email at greglondon.com
Fri May 8 19:20:29 EDT 2009


> Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 17:24:42 +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: <20090508172442.57ec5cec at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>>> Seriously? You're lecturing me about "freedom" and
>> how my "opinion" needs to subjugate to FSF's
>> "long time to formulate its viewpoints",
>> and you don't even understand the problem????
>
> I'm not arguing that you have to agree with the FSF (merely pointing you
> seemed to have no clue where they came from), and yes I do understand the
> problem, and I do know how chip design works.
>
>> Because the silicon is not a copyright derivative.
>
> I was hoping that by asking how you saw it I'd get an explanation of your
> viewpoint which would feed into a useful debate.

You want useful debate? then you shouldn't have gone on some
spanish inquisition attacking me because you didn't like my
OPINION of FSF, which had NOTHING to do with helping anyone
get a hardware license.

I was explaining to folks the issues around licensing hardware,
which is what this thread was about. I explained how most
copyleft licenses don't protect hardware because hardware
isn't a derivative and most copyleft licenses require distribution
of the derivative.

I then mention that I wrote FSF asking for some help, either
in the form of a license they might already have that would
protect hardware or if they would possibly be interested in
modifying an existing license. Instead of helping me find any
sort of solution, they sent me a long email about how I should
call it "Free" hardware instead of "Open" hardware.

Now I've got you doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

You're NOT HELPING ANYONE find a solution to their hardware
licensing question.

Instead, you've taken it upon yourself to lecture me how
it is JUST MY OPINION that FSF's failure to answer my question
and lecture me about vocabular MISSED THE POINT. No, you tell
me, FSF has a long and glorious history and we should prostrate
ourselves before them.

DID YOU HELP ME OR ANYONE ELSE WITH THAT RUBBISH?

NO.

You're on your soapbox, defending some perceived attack on FSF
that is completely irrelevant to the discussion of how to
license hardware under some kind of copyleft license that
provides any sort of real protection.

APSL is the only license I know of that can protect hardware
similar to the way software is protected by something like
GNU-GPL.

Do you have anything to contribute to THAT discussion?

or are you going to ride your hobby horse around some more
and chastize me simply because I don't worship FSF as
all-knowing, infinite, and wise like you do?
FSF is human. FSF is fallible. FSF has their own hobby horses
just like anyone else. FSF doesn't neccessarily have a
hardware person's best interests in mind.

Deal. with. it.

You wanna invoke the spanish inquisition on me just because
you think I'm some kind of FSF heretic? Because I don't worship
their religion? Email me offline, cause it's got nothing to
do with anyone getting a real open hardware license that
offers any sort of legitimate protection.

So far, APSL is the only license that comes close.
Hardware licensign is the topic fo the thread.

You wanna keep the thread to "useful debate" then
drop the FSF religion bullshit and deal with hardware licensing.






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