[Open-graphics] Someone cited us, thinks they can do it cheaper

[Michael Meeuwisse]

(If it appears that I'm replying slow, I'm just being flooded by  
replies right now.. I love it)

On 11 Nov 2007, at 21:45, Timothy Normand Miller wrote:

> On 11/11/07, Michael Meeuwisse <mickeymeeuw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> *snip*
>> IANAL and not a business person either, but I just wanted to make
>> sure that there isn't a smart-ass out there who starts producing my
>> design and selling it, without giving me (and thus, the project) a
>> penny. With GPL or some-sort, I think they might be able to actually
>> do that, so I tagged CC-NC-SA-3.0 on it for now.
>
> OGD1 isn't in any better position.  In fact, our more expensive design
> (in terms of development costs and production costs) puts us at
> greater risk.  However, we've put a GPL license on it, for what it's
> worth.  Frankly, with the exception of a wholesale identical copy, any
> of us would have some trouble proving in court that someone had nicked
> our design.

What you really have is a dual-license, with one end being GPL, if I  
understood correctly. If you want to contribute to the project, you  
have to agree with both licenses. Right? In any case, I want to go  
with something like that as well but as I said, IANAL, so I can't  
just write up a second license like that. That's why I went for the  
CC right now, it makes it possible to give all this info without me  
having to worry about the legal nitty details first.

> Also, to be honest, the company most likely to want to clone your
> design would be Traversal, and we wouldn't "just take it."  Even if
> you had put GPL on it, we are acutely aware of the personal and
> ethical aspects of doing a design like this.  We would negotiate a
> mutually-beneficial arrangement, or failing that, drop the idea
> entirely.

Call me cynical, but the world isn't that pretty. Still, good to know ;)

>> Another point what I'd like to make is that my recent 'interest' in
>> how OGP is going to tackle VGA is largely also self-interest. If I'll
>> be able to load (at least parts) of the design into my card, I'll be
>> saving buckets of time. And hopefully vice versa.
>
> We're definitely on the same page here.  Do take note of our SVN
> commit policy so that you can make informed choices about what parts
> of your work become available to Traversal for commercial licensing.

This is all a bit future talk, but now that you bring this up I might  
as well continue on it;

Right now what isn't clear for me is whether or not I could use any  
code from the SVN with 'just' the GPL license above it. I believe  
that's not the case, and if my card would at some point be mass  
produced, that would cause troubles because I wouldn't be able to  
flash this code on it. The second clause of the license doesn't  
exactly cover this titbit. If it's left out, do the other clauses  
still matter (clause 4 for example won't make sense).

Long story short, will I be able to use stuff from SVN with just a  
GPL license slapped on it instead of the dual license?

All code I'm writing myself will be put under any licenses at my  
discretion, so I can put it in license X* for my own project and the  
'traversal license' for OGP. Which I will, if that piece is useful  
for OGP. But the moment other people start adding to project VGA  
there's a change the above story occurs, but then that OGP has to  
work it's way around license X.

In all cases we want to avoid a whole linux-steals-from-bsd story  
there was recently.
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070829001634

> -- 
> Timothy Normand Miller
> http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
> Open Graphics Project

Mike
www.wacco.mveas.com - Project VGA

*X being whatever it ends up being, some kind of dual license thing.