[Open-graphics] Definition of Open Hardware

[Terry Hancock]

Lourens Veen wrote:
>  On Wednesday 04 October 2006 18:41, Nicolas Boulay wrote:
> > But a licence can't have an effect on the way to use the product. A
> > licence on copyright could restrict you lot of things but not the
> > use of a goods. When you buy a CD you only have a right to listen
> > it, you have no right on the copyrighted materials, but you can
> > resell the CD or give it to a friend.

But you can't *copy* the CD and give the COPY to a friend.  Hence the 
expression "copy + right", i.e. "the right to copy", which is actually 
short for "monopoly on the right to copy", the unique right to copy, 
granted as a state-supported monopoly to the creator of the work.

When you print PCB boards or ASICs, you are engaging in the same kind of 
copying activity, and you are subject to the license terms because you 
are employing the license which gives you the right to make these copies.

An end-user who receives the product, of course, does NOT have an 
obligation to include the source if he merely GIVES his open hardware 
product to someone (including sales). In fact, there is no copyright 
obligation involved there at all (in the US, this is called the "first 
sale doctrine", which is why, for example you can sell used books 
without paying any royalties to the authors).

He only gets that requirement placed on him if he decides to COPY the 
work. And should he decide to do that, he can always get the plans to 
include with his copies, because the person who COPIED the work to sell 
it to him had to agree to provide him with those plans on demand.

> > Every object came from plan but plan licence can't affect the use
> > of the object.
>
>  Agreed.

Yes. Unless that use is the process of making a COPY of the object.

> >> Actually, this is wrong. Copyrighted copies *are* goods too, and
> >> copyright certainly does apply to them. The thing that makes the
> >> copyright law applicable is that these goods convey information.
> >
> > They carry it but a licence on the information can't affect the use
> > of the object

True, but not relevant.  We don't actually care about restrictions on 
people who receive copies of a piece of hardware (most people would 
consider that "non-free" anyway).  We care about making sure the people 
who make those copies have to make the "source" (the plans) available.  
And that we *can* do, because they are making copies, which only the 
license allows them to do.  That's the copyleft hook, and it *does* work 
for hardware.

Technically speaking, even "software" and more obviously printed books 
are "hardware" once they are embodied into a physical object -- which 
was my point about them being "goods".  Copyright doesn't tell you 
anything about what you may do with your copy of a book, EXCEPT you 
can't make COPIES of it.  If you want to make legal COPIES of the book, 
you can only do so if you are given a LICENSE to do so, and that's where 
the copyleft terms come in for a free-licensed, copylefted work: that's 
the person who has to provide source/plans on demand.

Of course, just as with software, we can't stop you from making a 
"hacked" derivative version of the work.  It's only when you start 
trying to distribute copies of that hack that you will be required to 
share the design of your hack as part of the source/plans for the product.



There *are* sticky parts here, but you guys are missing them by a wide 
barn-width... ;-)

Sticky part #1: When does "following a plan" become "copying a plan"?

It's pretty obvious that PC boards and chips, which are produced by some 
kind of photo-lithographic process (i.e. they are *printed*) are COPIES 
of the master design (whether it is in physical or electronic form).

Likewise, it's pretty clear that following a list of instructions to mix 
up a particular type of plastic is not "making a copy" of the 
instructions, but merely "using" them.

But there's a broad, fuzzy, gray place in between these two extremes.

This question affects the issue of when exactly will the copyleft terms 
of a copyleft free license apply.  When is the manufacturer engaging in 
a copying process, and when is he merely engineering a new work based on 
existing literature?

This is why I brought up the "photo of flat art" case. It demonstrates 
an already legally-tested edge-case of this type.

The good news, though, is that the really interesting free hardware 
cases (chips, PCBs, etc) *are* very clear-cut cases of copying 
processes, so we don't really have to face this bugbear yet.


Sticky part #2: do you really want to insist on a free world made 
entirely of free atoms?

Stated facetiously, but sort of correctly in the abstract. We think of 
designs as being made up of "atomic" design elements.  We don't really 
think about the internal design of a transistor as being part of a 
design for a radio.  So the fact that we designed a circuit based on a 
transistor that is probably proprietary isn't important.

What we've done is to rely on a standard interface provided by a 
commodity part. The real reason we don't care about the transistor is 
that we can get another one from another source, so the proprietary vs 
free nature of the transistor doesn't really affect us much.

It's a little more uncomfortable when the proprietary part is a unique 
LSI component like a CPU. Then there may be only a single supplier, and 
once the part is taken off the market, the design using it becomes 
useless. One of the earliest successful open hardware projects, the LART 
computer, ran into this problem.  LART used a proprietary ARM CPU. A few 
years later, that CPU was discontinued.  So, there's still a 
free-licensed LART plan out there, but good luck finding the CPU you 
need to build it.

Likewise, if we design an open graphics board, do we want to prohibit 
manufacturers from installing it into (otherwise) non-free PCs and 
distributing them?  No.  We want that to be considered "mere 
aggregation", just like shipping a free Java program and a proprietary 
Sun Java runtime on a single CD.

This is pretty intuitive for the examples of interest, but IMHO it's 
hard to describe that intuition in a legally enforceable way.

These two points are lawyer fodder, all right.

Looking at them, though, I don't see that they really require much of a 
push to use a GPL license. Tiny changes in the wording to provide 
adequate definitions of the above cases, or perhaps a requirement or an 
ability for the author to specify the intent in particular use cases, 
might provide all that is needed.

Indeed, considering that GPLv3 is being drafted as we speak, I wonder if 
it wouldn't be possible for it to accomodate such requirements?

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com