Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Friday 18 March 2005 05:14 pm, Greg London wrote:
> drew Roberts said:
> > What is the difference between embedded
> > software and hardware. They are both
> > unchangeable pieces of silicon are they
> > not? (Or at least they can be. Right?)

I appreciate the answer, but could you actually answer the question posed 
first. I really want to know from a technical point. Isn't ROM a piece of 
unchangeable silicon? Isn't and asic a piece of unchangeable silicon?
>
> Embedded software is on a ROM instead of
> on a CD. Both are a matter of expression
> in a medium rather than implementations
> of chemistry.
>
> Copyright covers the expression,
> not the implementation.
> You can enforce copyright on your expression
> whether it is written in ink on paper,
> oil on canvas, a CD ROM, or bits in a ROM.

Again, I am ignorant. These are not actual bits though, are they? Aren't they 
gates, resistors, diodes, etc? Are ROMs made from masks?

>
> A cake is a matter of chemistry.
> You cannot copyright a cake.
> Hardware is metaphorically cake.
>
> You cannot copyright hardware.
> You cannot copyright functionality.
> That is the only thing that allows
> Open Source Software to implement the
> same functionality as Microsoft.
> Without it, Open Office would not be
> able to read/write a MS-Word document.
>
> Thinking about it now, I just realized that
> you cannot copyright a recipe for cake.

You may not be able to copyright a recipe for cake, that would be good and if 
so, is good to know, ... but I just went and checked three cookbooks and they 
all have copyright pages. So, if the recipes cannot be copyrighted, what 
exactly is copyrighted in these books?
>
> You can, however, copyright a "recipe" for hardware.
> The verilog code that expresses or describes the
> hardware can be copyrighted.
>
> What I do NOT know with any certainty is whether
> or not copyright applies to the "cake" you "bake"
> when you convert the recipe to silicon.
>
> A silicon die is about chemistry/physics,
> actual implementation of the expression,
> similar to the way a cake implements the recipe.
>
> I'd say that silicon should NOT be copyrightable,
> although I would allow someone to copyright their
> particular masks. But I would treat a mask
> as something OTHER than a derived work of the
> code/recipe it came from. I'd treat it as an
> original work.
>
> But, again, that's just me.
>
> What it comes down to is a copyright lawyer
> who is familiar with asic design needs to
> answer the question. 

This is certain.

> The law can be arbitrary 
> in what it chooses, 

Totally agreed, which would make the moral arguments of "intellectual 
property' proponents funny in my view if the whole situation was not so 
dangerous and out of control.

> so no one can just 
> infer what it "should" be from simple logic.

You are so right. Does anyone think there is any real hope of getting to the 
point where things actually make sense and can be reasoned out?

all the best,

drew