[Open-graphics] Definition of Open Hardware

[Lourens Veen]

On Wednesday 04 October 2006 09:24, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 01:04:51 +0200
>
> > There are many people here, with widely varying views on issues
> > like DRM, patents, free software vs. open source, copyleft, and so
> > on. These need to be discussed, and we need to decide what we do
> > and do not want to allow in open hardware. We need to decide which
> > freedoms and rights we want to reserve for the public, and which
> > freedoms and rights we are willing to give up to attract more
> > (corporate) developers.
>
> ..everyone has his own believe and IMHO we should not touch them.
> Do not force people into categories unless you really want get
> rid of everyone but a few who, by chance, fit into the same category
> as you do. IMHO the best way currently is to sit and wait what
> will come up. Adress problems when they arise. Do not stir up things
> just because it might become a problem in the future (as most of the
> possible problems do never become a real problem).

Well, there is this little issue of an Open Hardware Foundation being 
set up, without anyone knowing what open hardware is and what should or 
shouldn't be supported by that foundation. If I were to donate to that 
fuondation, I'd like to know that it's not going to spend that money on 
creating proprietary hardware.

> > We need to
> > know where the legal boundaries are in various jurisdictions, and
> > which rights/restrictions exist in a legal sense.
>
> To cite Linus Torvalds "Don't go there".
> Yes, we might need to define what legal boundaries we have.

This was more intended to be background information. The free software 
definition includes the freedom to use the programme for any purpose. 
The GPL, being a copyright licence, does not cover that freedom, 
because copyright does not restrict use. In fact, the GPL explicitly 
says that use is outside of its scope. In fact, laws can change (and 
intellectual property laws can be bought it seems) so that we can not 
take for granted that some right that is not limited by a law today 
will still be there tomorrow. Still, it can't hurt to know a bit about 
the legal landscape.

> Please also note, that there are very few legal problems in the
> OSS world. I've only heard about a dozen or so legal skirmishes
> in the last 7 years. Most of them about usage of a name or logo.
> Very few were about copyright (and all but two about a company
> breaking the GPL)

http://www.gpl-violations.org/about.html#history

"During 2004, more and more cases of infringement were discovered, 
mostly in the embedded networking market." and "By June 2006, the 
project has hit the magic "100 cases finished" mark, at an exciting 
equal "100% legal success" mark. Every GPL infringement that we started 
to enforce was resolved in a legal success, either in-court or out of 
court." That's 40 cases per year. Especially in the embedded market, 
which is where a lot of open hardware is going to go as well.

> We should really stick to what we are best: engineering.

Even Linus carefully considered the licence he put Linux under. 
Engineering is not done in a vacuum. I'm not a fan of management 
either, but I don't think it is. I consider this engineering a 
community and an economic ecosystem to support that community. I want 
my hardware, and I'm not going to get it unless someone is willing to 
invest time and money into creating actual pieces of plastic, metal and 
semiconductors from the open HDL. For that, they need a viable business 
model. And for that they need to know what they can count on.

> We neither need examples nor usecases. They'll apear by themselves
> when the time is right.

Or when it's too late: people complaining about their donations to the 
OHF being spent on things they don't agree with, open HDL being ripped 
off, and so on.

> Overall, you should not try to create work overhead for something
> that has no clear benefit. Talking about how to do something will
> not give anything. What needs to be done should be done though,
> but we should not unnecessary create work.

I agree. I think this should be done.

Lourens
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