How to choose the right License

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at what licenses are used on different projects. And i see many diffrent Licences being used, but not much info on why someone chooses a certain over an other.
On a forum as large as this i find it a bit odd that i can't find much info on licenses although I do find some stuff on Patents but that's a different issue.

I'm making a little electronics project just to get familiar with the reprap process so to say. And i din't think about Licenses at all. So now i'm a bit overwhelmed and don't see clearly where to start with this.

How does a software licence like GLPv3 like I see on RAMPS work for hardware?
What licenses are out there, and what are the once to look at for an electronics project?

I have more questions, but lets keep it at this to start with.

I did several searches but for some reason I don't find much on the topic. So if there is a long threat I have missed then please link me to it. Thanks.

Licensing – Hardware
(OSHW): Best Practices for Open-Source Hardware: OSHW is sharing the design files for a piece of hardware for others to modify or make hardware from (including for commercial purposes). [www.oshwa.org]

Popular copyleft licenses include “free-software”: require that derivatives be licensed under the same terms
(CERN OHL) OPEN HARDWARE LICENCE, (Products). [www.ohwr.org]
(TAPR-OHL) Open Hardware License, (Products) TAPR grants permission for anyone to use the OHL as the license for their hardware project, provided only that it is used in unaltered form. [www.tapr.org]
(TAPR-OHL) Although it (OHL) does not prohibit anyone from patenting inventions embodied in an Open Hardware design, and of course cannot prevent a third party from enforcing their patent rights, those who benefit from an OHL design may not bring lawsuits claiming that design infringes their patents or other intellectual property. [www.tapr.org]


Licensing – Software
Open Source Initiative, (Software, Documents). [opensource.org]
GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or GPL) is the most widely used[5] free software license, which guarantees end users (individuals, organizations, companies) the freedoms to use, study, share (copy), and modify the software.  [en.wikipedia.org], and [gnu.org]

Popular copyleft licenses include “free-software”: require that derivatives be licensed under the same terms
Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike (BY-SA) [creativecommons.org]
GNU General Public License (GPL) [www.gnu.org]

Permissive licenses include “open-source”: allow others to make modifications without releasing them as open-source hardware.
FreeBSD license [opensource.org]
MIT License (MIT) [opensource.org]
Creative Commons Attribution By, (Software, Documents). [creativecommons.org]
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the redistribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have reciprocity share-alike requirements. [en.wikipedia.org]


Patents again [forums.reprap.org]
Moral rights (copyright law) [en.wikipedia.org])
User:Traumflug [reprap.org]
(.STL): US Legal Lessons from Canada’s First STL IP Infringement Case, By Michael Weinberg [www.publicknowledge.org]
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. [cyber.law.harvard.edu]
Electronic Frontier Foundation [www.eff.org]
Public Knowledge [www.publicknowledge.org]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 02:51AM by A2.

the link above is incomplete for
Moral rights (copyright law). it actually seems to be an error of the forum generator, not the author. if i try to link it it does not finish the second ')'

this is the complete link
'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_(copyright_law)'

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 12:15AM by jamesdanielv.

Yes, thanks A2.

I have seen most of them and a few others that are known to be more restrictive. (so they are not RepRap friendly)
But how do I start to compare them?
The large chuncks of text make it one big obstacle.

For the little time i'm now looking the TAPR and CERN licenses seem 'ok', TAPR uses less bureaucratic terminology then CERN so that makes it more easy to read, but still after reading 5 pages then you start to loose the plot about that one license before even making an attempt to compare it with any other.

How do others get about in selecting their license?

I just finished this text: [reprap.org]
It gives me some idea what issues to give extra focus. The NC stuff for instance. What isn't yet clear to me is how to see this. So i'll have to do more diggin.

Stuff like: What if one uses an NC license and then someone does commercial sales, then what happens? Who will stop this?
On the other hand. How do you make stuff available yourself id it is under a NC license?
Can I produce a design under NC licence? How does that work? And can I still make stuff available trough other outlets. Still allowing others to freely use the designs for personal use.
I think this is what they say, needs more education. But where do I find the actual info on how it is meant to work? Without being mentally polluted with 'un-educated opinions'?
How do I filter right from wrong?

BTW are there also things to consider based on the location where you live? Are there for instance also licences that have a European 'home base'?

Damn to many questions already and i feel like i haven't even started. :-)

Quote
jamesdanielv
the link above is incomplete for
Moral rights (copyright law). it actually seems to be an error of the forum generator, not the author. if i try to link it it does not finish the second ')'

this is the complete link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_(copyright_law)

Thanks i almost missed it!

However copyright and hardware is a bit of an odd combination.
This and Intellectual propperty stuff makes things complicated, let alone all the patent stuff and the trolling that is a result of the legal loopholes.
I try to stay away from patent issues in this tread and focus on finding out the main differences in licenses.

Now i wonder if there are moral rights when it comes to hardware licenses. As copyright is more for things like software, music and books.
And what if you use a copyright based licence of hardware? I see this on RAMPS for instance there is a GPLv3 being used. But that doesn't cover anything about production and distribution.

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BackEMF

Stuff like: What if one uses an NC license and then someone does commercial sales, then what happens? Who will stop this?
On the other hand. How do you make stuff available yourself id it is under a NC license?
Can I produce a design under NC licence? How does that work? And can I still make stuff available trough other outlets. Still allowing others to freely use the designs for personal use.
I think this is what they say, needs more education. But where do I find the actual info on how it is meant to work? Without being mentally polluted with 'un-educated opinions'?
How do I filter right from wrong?

From a legal aspect in the US an NC license on a hardware project means nothing. From a legal standpoint it is simply a request that no one build your device for commercial reasons. The only legal way to protect a hardware design such as a printer is to patent it. A software license is a copyright license and is not applicable to hardware. Copyright licenses will cover the distribution of your design files but not the manufactured work.

The way to figure out how copyright and patents work is to research them in the appropriate jurisdiction for where you will be based and/or selling. For example your sig says you are from the Netherlands so first EU and Dutch law would be the best place to start. Many potential users will be in the US so you may wish to research that as well. The primary take away should be how copyright and patents differ and what sorts of works will apply to each.

Having an NC license won't mean cloners won't build your device. What it will mean are those that do have businesses won't likely contribute by either helping or providing a manufacturing channel. Electronic still need to be manufactured and if you limit the distribution to those that are willing to make their own you will drastically reduce the size of the pool that might be interested in using your device. If your device is really good and starts showing demand there is nothing you can do to stop cloners except shame them and that's not going to matter to most of them. OTOH if you open it and others like it, established suppliers will be more willing to build them or have them included in kits. From the strictest interpretation of an open source license adding an NC stipulation makes the project not open source even though you provide source files.

In the end you need to do what you feel is best for you. Having said that, LadyAda of Adafruit fame posted this some time back (7-8 years ago) regarding the reason she feels NC licenses are more detrimental to a project than helpful.

[www.ladyada.net]

Unfortunately I already know about how copyright laws work and are twisted in the music industry and this doesn't make things easier. hehe

So I try to keep an open mind and also make a fresh start in figuring things out how things work for hardware.

For now I still tend to stand on Traumflug's side when it comes to the NC stuff. Although I still don't fully understand it. But I do see that ladyada's argument is on CreativeCommons-NC and that is about Copyright and NC. Though for instance TAPR-NC and CERN-NC are written with hardware in mind. I'm far form having things clear, but i'm sure that will make a difference. And yes that post is already a few years old.

This brings me to another issue. once you come across a license that turns out to be better then what you already have, can you then change licence? For instance on RAMPS I see on the PCB that GPLv3 is mentioned. How to deal with stuff like that. When i change a license then I cant change the printed text on all the hardware out there.

I hope i can figure out the deeper stuff about the NC. I do understand the argument but i also have the feeling there is much more to it that i need to know before writing it off.
In Traumflug's page i can kinda see where the issue but i'm unable to see the bigger picture yet.

I don't agree that i should give everyone the right to just produce away and forget about us. I wonder if there is a way to channel the production in a way that still permits stuff to be produced under the NC license. I myself am not commercial, though i'd still like the board to be produced. I have the feeling that there is a way to do this under the NC license.
And sure cloners will be out there, but isn't it so that you have more in hand against cloners with an NC based license then with without the NC license where you already waive the right away in the first place?

The argument of others being less willing to include them in kits I do agree with, if the NC license really is an obstacle to this.

What irritates me a bit is all the legal stuff. In a way I only wanted to develop a small usefull extra. But the commercial retailers don't seem to share a bit of the proffit back to us. And because of that i'm having the feeling that the NC license isn't all that bad IF there still is a way to produce and distribute under that license.

I don't agree with you, but I'm thankfull for your reply it made a few things much clearer for me WHERE to look at. Even if i'm not seeing things 100% clear yet. It's a lot to take in, on top of all the other learning curves i'm already involved in.

Edit:
Also the ladyada article uses software like Firefox and Linux as an agrument for hardware licenses, that in itself is already is comparing banana's with tomatoes. But ok, it's written several years ago and this stuff changes fast.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 03:04AM by BackEMF.

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BackEMF
For now I still tend to stand on Traumflug's side when it comes to the NC stuff. Although I still don't fully understand it.

Perhaps it helps if you see it as a dual licence. People without commercial intent can do whatever they appreciate, people with commercial interests are expected to either keep out or buy a commercial licence (which then isn't a licence, but a contract).

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BackEMF
Though for instance TAPR-NC and CERN-NC are written with hardware in mind.

There's a CERN-NC? I'm not aware of it.

Both, TAPR and CERN don't found on copyright, but on plain contracts. If you make a copy, you have to agree with their contract (which demands similar things as if you'd be under GPL copyright).

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BackEMF
can you then change licence?

Yes. If it happens to be the same design, the user is free to choose between the old and the new licence, of course, because the old choice is still valid. As a result, licence changes typically happen when the design changes, too.

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BackEMF
I myself am not commercial, though i'd still like the board to be produced. I have the feeling that there is a way to do this under the NC license.

You can, withount infringing the intention of such a licence

- produce the board without selling it or

- ask the designer / licence holder for a permit.

Quote
BackEMF
And sure cloners will be out there, but isn't it so that you have more in hand against cloners with an NC based license then with without the NC license where you already waive the right away in the first place?

Morally: yes, legally: no. It depends somewhat on the community on how much moral counts. For example, genuine Arduino boards are rarely recommended here, instead you see many links and recommendations to cheapo clones. Not exactly the best way to support the Arduino project.

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BackEMF
The argument of others being less willing to include them in kits I do agree with, if the NC license really is an obstacle to this.

It's only an obstacle because the seller has/had to ask a slightly higher price and forward that difference to the designer. As you see with Arduinos, RepRappers are very very price sensitive.

One thing I'm not sure about is: is it acutally an advantage to have so many copycats? As you can see on many RepRap designs, these copiers don't care at all to improve the initial design. Sanguinololu, RAMPS, still have the same design flaws they had two years ago. Worse, some copiers change the design without notice and without documenting it, confusing users.

Quote
BackEMF
In a way I only wanted to develop a small usefull extra. But the commercial retailers don't seem to share a bit of the proffit back to us.

It's simple: to get a share from the profits, you have to distribute yourself.

The only exception are traditional mechants, like Conrad, RS, Mouser, Home Depot, whatever. If you can get a deal with them, go for it.

That said, two shops actually paid for commercial Gen7 licences for a while. As much as I appreciated that, this stopped and very likely always stops as soon as another design comes around which (morally) can be copied for free. I can't really blame them for such behaviour.

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BackEMF
the ladyada article uses software like Firefox and Linux as an agrument for hardware licenses, that in itself is already is comparing banana's with tomatoes.

Well observed.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Thanks Traumflug

CERN-NC is indeed a mistake, here you can see how easy it is the get lost in the jungle of legal speak.

http://schedule2012.rmll.info/IMG/pdf/LSM2012_OpenHardwareCern_Serrano.pdf

At page 5 you can have a look what caused me to have a memory blob that glues CERN and Non Commercial together.
Even as i write this i have to double check it that really isn't about CERN-NC haha.




In a way it feels like i'm looking for a licence that makes commercial use possible but conditionally. Don't give me money but donate a percentage (calculated over the produced number of units) to an organisation mutually agreed upon. And i say produced number of units since when i would have said percentage of the proffit then they can twist and turn things and say look we didn't make profit we don't have to donate anything. (i don't have clear in my mind if this really is what i want but just to give people an idea what is playing in my mind)

I'm not sure if this is an option but something like this would eventually be an option to generate funding. And even for a commercial licence it could be a way to have some kind of quality control when you can allow someone to produce and distribute a design but it has to meet a certain production standard. And this could push the overall quality also up a bit?

Ladyada's article mentioned also this:
"One point I want to make is that for a project to be considered Open Source there cannot be any restrictions placed on that project. That includes "non-commercial", "commercialization requires purchasing a license", "no government/military use", etc. "

In itself an interesting thing since government are know to abuse their powers in every way they see an option to do so.

The improvements that the copycats make will never flow back into the community. They never will say HEY i made a clone, i improved this and this, and now it is filling my wallet. Thank you!
It would be nice if a licence would have an option to make some kind of conditionally production allowance. You may produce this but, changes have to be documented, and share a percentage of the profit back. Commercially for those who want to make money, or donations in case of a non commercial licence. If at all legally possible.

I'm not sure why there is only black and white, Commercial and then fully focussed on production, or non commercial and very low production.
In my case i'd like to have small production. enough to get feedback and generate small donations. For every produced batch 1% is added to the production cost as a donation to the project, or to RepRap, or a related project. And if the succes is overwhelming then hey, congratulations to the project that gets the donation!

Wealth without money and eventually with some money. The more i think of it the more i 'd like to have something in between. And donations should be possible like this. Even if the producing company donates direct to the project they should be able to deduct taxes and then the barrier got even smaller.

Here i'll give it a break, maybe this isn't legally even possible at all. Though i hope i sparked some new ideas for someone! :-)

Cheapo Arduino clones. It's a bit of a paradox, due to the clones repraps became more affordable, Arduino more popular. I don't imply that it is fair to Arduino but the clones also had a positive influence. Still the Chinese factories have to feed their workers, and since the prices are very competitive i wonder how much profit they make. Don't forget that the Chinese have a different philosophy. Production is work, work is income and income is food. And open source is an easy way to generate food. So it make one wonder why there isn't a Chinese RepRap project



EDIT

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Traumflug

Quote
BackEMF
I myself am not commercial, though i'd still like the board to be produced. I have the feeling that there is a way to do this under the NC license.

You can, withount infringing the intention of such a licence
- produce the board without selling it or
- ask the designer / licence holder for a permit.

I almost overlooked it! Thats great! Now i see how NC doesn't have to be a big issue, it's actually better this also can give you a bit of the quality control i mentioned before. And it slows down the ones that produce to make a fast buck without giving anything back to the community!
If i see this correct then NC is a lot smarter then a commercial licence. Now I wish that there would be a CERN-NC this actually starts to make sense now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 11:20AM by BackEMF.

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BackEMF

Cheapo Arduino clones. It's a bit of a paradox, due to the clones repraps became more affordable, Arduino more popular. I don't imply that it is fair to Arduino but the clones also had a positive influence. Still the Chinese factories have to feed their workers, and since the prices are very competitive i wonder how much profit they make. Don't forget that the Chinese have a different philosophy. Production is work, work is income and income is food. And open source is an easy way to generate food. So it make one wonder why there isn't a Chinese RepRap project

the Arduino clone problem was to a degree one of their own making, while they make a great high quality product the last thing they appear to have given any serious thought to is their retail and wholesale pricing and looking at the Arduino Due nothing much has changed, even at their 1000pc rate there just isn't enough room to make a decent profit to make it worth while, there is a similar lack of incentive with most of the shields they produce as well,

there is a few other producers within the reprap movement which have done the same thing and now wonder why the clone shops have done their bit, ultimately you cannot have it both ways wether you choose an NC or any of the other completely open licenses,

- if you want to be the sole producer then you need to give anyone who wants to resell it a reasonable price difference between retail and wholesale to make a profit as well as MOQ's which are sane
- if you want everyone else to make it but collect a small amount of money on each unit sold then you've got to be reasonable on what you expect and bear in mind what they are up against

pretty much all new developments seem to be going either closed source or NC , even the ones doing things under GPL types are demanding percentages of the production or some kind of licencing arrangement. and where the clone shops are really bad is that nearly none of them have made the effort to contact the people they are copying and exploring the wholesale option before instead going straight into production

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-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

Hmm interesting,

I also have the feeling that there is a difference due to profit margins. I have the feeling that European companies are not fully aware that the margins in large global markets are higher (since the quantities are higher) Personally i also find it a bit backward that the bigger the quantities are the bigger the discounts. When it comes to fair trade then in my opinion there should be less price difference so that small retailers still have a chance to get food on the table. Now this is more of a capitalism issue but it's just not a fair situation.

The things you mention are something i really need to consider.

My tiny little PCB project has some potention, though personally i'm not planning to monetise it. However to make it a little bit succesful it seems that i MUST walk the commercial path. And me being me, i want to walk in the middle of the road. Though for now there doesn't seem to be a a licence that makes that space available.

I'd really like to see my PCB available in small shops who only have small quantities lets say A small batch is split over 20 shops. And i'd like to make this possible without doing a big investment.
I develop the PCB, test it, write documentation. (thats my part of the investment, time and energy and all the costs on prototyping) Once the prototype is ready I sure like it to be available for retailers and thus alsoopen for production. But i don't want half assed quality. If possible in any way i'd like to have standard good quality. Products available and still i'd like to be non-commercial myself.
Sounds odd, I do like something back it there is a way, but it's not a must. I'd like to see how this would develop in a market without having to deal with investing, running a company, tax crap etc.
Just make the PCB available but in a way that small shops have just the same chance as global retailers like Mouser Digikey Farnell Conrad etc. I don't see my PCB as some product that they would offer but some small retailers might actually like my PCB and for THEM i like to make room for opportunities with this PCB.

I think this is a way to open up the market for open products. But even the licences for open products are very stuck in old ways it seems. They don't give much room for new ideas (like mine).
The market is big enough for all of us. We together have more great ideas then what the established industry can ever mass produce. Mass production just can't provide the needs of the future.

:-) did i just write this? Cool!

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BackEMF
Hmm interesting,

I also have the feeling that there is a difference due to profit margins. I have the feeling that European companies are not fully aware that the margins in large global markets are higher (since the quantities are higher) Personally i also find it a bit backward that the bigger the quantities are the bigger the discounts. When it comes to fair trade then in my opinion there should be less price difference so that small retailers still have a chance to get food on the table. Now this is more of a capitalism issue but it's just not a fair situation.

The things you mention are something i really need to consider.

My tiny little PCB project has some potention, though personally i'm not planning to monetise it. However to make it a little bit succesful it seems that i MUST walk the commercial path. And me being me, i want to walk in the middle of the road. Though for now there doesn't seem to be a a licence that makes that space available.

I'd really like to see my PCB available in small shops who only have small quantities lets say A small batch is split over 20 shops. And i'd like to make this possible without doing a big investment.
I develop the PCB, test it, write documentation. (thats my part of the investment, time and energy and all the costs on prototyping) Once the prototype is ready I sure like it to be available for retailers and thus alsoopen for production. But i don't want half assed quality. If possible in any way i'd like to have standard good quality. Products available and still i'd like to be non-commercial myself.
Sounds odd, I do like something back it there is a way, but it's not a must. I'd like to see how this would develop in a market without having to deal with investing, running a company, tax crap etc.
Just make the PCB available but in a way that small shops have

just the same chance as global retailers like Mouser Digikey Farnell Conrad etc. I don't see my PCB as some product that they would offer but some small retailers might actually like my PCB and for THEM i like to make room for opportunities with this PCB.

I think this is a way to open up the market for open products. But even the licences for open products are very stuck in old ways it seems. They don't give much room for new ideas (like mine).
The market is big enough for all of us. We together have more great ideas then what the established industry can ever mass produce. Mass production just can't provide the needs of the future.

:-) did i just write this? Cool!

what is the pcb going to do?

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-=( blog )=- -=( thingiverse )=- -=( 3Dindustries )=- -=( Aluhotend - mostly metal hotend)=--=( Facebook )=-

It merely enables easy use of recycled ATX power supplies. To recycle them in an easy way and a simple way to connect them to RAMPS to be able to power ON OFF with M80 M81 in Marlin
And also they can be uses to enable whatever Arduino Project to use ATX PSU's in a quick and easy way. I'm currently trying out the first proto batch and writing the initial documentation.

The next phase is to have a few testers to provide feedback and improve the proto. I would like to do a broader community based dev but i try to reduce the chaos in this first project so that my own learning curve is as smooth as possible.

[forums.reprap.org] This is where it started. :-)

You guys missed the point Limor was making with respect to Firefox and Linux. The point is that if it's open with no restrictions, there will be more that will contribute. That has proven itself since the dawn of open/free/GNU, etc. The more open the project, the more will potentially be willing to contribute. The fact it's hardware or software is not relevant, it's about being open and inclusive. A good example on the hardware side is the Prusa i3. While there are a dizzying array of interations, many have contributed to make the vanilla single plate go from a somewhat primitive design to adding features and function. The Einstein, Rework, sgraber and Hephestos are examples as well as the wide variety of frame materials. One could certainly argue the quality or even the appropriateness of the design changes but the point is without being open they never would have happened and proliferated.

In the end any sort of NC stipulation is academic. You have no legal hardware protection unless it's patented. Period. If you feel you need an NC license by all means go ahead and use that. What you are debating is not a legal issue but an issue if someone will respect your wishes or not. Under US law unless hardware is covered by patent it is well within another's right to copy it, documented or not. In the circumstance of this particular item I don't think you'll see a rush of others to clone your idea. It's a fine idea but the use of ATX PSUs in Reprap and other Arduino projects has been on the decline. In fact I'd say the majority of new builds are using industrial PSUs and for less than a comparable ATX PSU one can get a name brand PSU of a greater capacity with an easier time in many cases getting warranty support. That's not to say the part doesn't have a place but I see it being useful to more people if they could get it at Sparkfun, Adafruit or Seeed. The people that are going to use that likely aren't going to be able to build it in the first place. And those that can build one probably already have.

Arduino has no qualms about others making a similar or identical piece of equipment. They just don't want you using the Arduino trademarks. It's misleading to use Arduino as an example as they are perfectly fine with others making copies of the boards as long as they don't infringe on the mark. The genius of Arduino isn't the hardware, that's bone simple. It's the ecosphere of shields and the relative easy of getting a prototype going or for learning embedded electronics.

I think the mistake that many make is to see open source as a business model. Open source isn't a business model, it's a means of production.

Sure the point will be missed when someone is pointing at a kiwi in a crate that's full with other fruit. (it very hard to see the kiwi)
The NC argument seems to be mainly based on the issues caused by another license. That was based on Bruce Perens approach. But Bruce never seemed to care about humanity. He made it sound like he did but he never seemed to understand Stallman. Now that's another issue altogether, but this the point where the NC confusion seems to start.

Then there is also the mainly commercial background of ladyada. And yes then it is very convenient if you just can grab every work of everyone who doesn't have a NC licence, you even don't have to ask permission, just copy and make $$$$$$$. And so do the copycats. And then you also start to find articles at adafruit industries how sad they are that THEIR work of the stepper/servo shield is copied, and that THEY don't want to support stuff that people bought from copycats. And for the little research i did up to now this seems to be caused by the misconception and unawareness of other NC licnenses out there (Like TAPR-NC)

And on top of that the article seems to be out of date. Now there is also CERN1.2

I'd like to add that i'm not against adafruit in any way. They do wonderful things there. But that article is just confusing things that should not be confused. All the license stuff is hard enough to deal with without mixing things up. And i'm soooooo afraid that all the words i just typed have errors because of me being all new to this.. And i will get all the shit over me and that will then stop me from learning the real deal.

And this is also where Stallmans free as in freedom is misunderstood. You can make money with free software, but with Open Source Software you get ripped off then the industry just grabs because of the stuff that the (Bruce Perens) license model that doesn't cover those issues. ---- But that’s about the SOFTWARE licences and not HARDWARE.

All this stuff is coughed up by google when you search for "Open Source Hardware Licenses" as well and this doesn't make things any less confusing!!

Now, when i first looked at Open hardware I had pretty much the free software idea in mind. So that also didn't help much...

The thing is this.
The TAPR and TAPR-NC licenses are very much in the same line. And it is hard to figure out what will work best
CERN is more confusing but there seem to be clever things in regard to commercial use.

So for me there seems to be much going for CERN. But still for what i have in mind i don't know if CERN is the way to go.
For this little project it is only hardware, there is no software involved so it should be kinda simple to figure out the license though it much harder then i thought it would be.

Also i don't see how Open Source is a means of production. Open Source is a means of keeping tech evolution in the hands of humanity so that we don't stay in the stoneages.

I can see why you like it to be a means of production. And this gives me one more reason to look deeper into the NC stuff and what is all possible there.
I don't like to be pushed into a model that is just easy for production. I look for a model that works both ways, and with that i meen, that the producing party has to share something back, and not only grab the money and move on.

Any NC is academic? ANY???
hold on there... The world is full of Not For Profit organisations. Why should they be forgotten about?
Look, I like to make this hardware available, I want it to be out there in a good quality professionally produced. But is don't want to start a company for just one product it doesn't make sense.
So i like to stay Non Commercial for now. In other words NO business model on my end. Still i like to have something to say about the hardware itself. And if possible also some quality control so that the hardware complies to a few basic things. Then additionally i also like that a percentage of the end price flows back into the community. Up to now it is a one man project to keep things simple, but future projects i sure want to be a community effort so for that it would be good to have that back flow. And that also can be used to encourage copycats to consider to join in and make decent quality instead of making low quality copies. There is more to this, but I first need to find a license that enables me to do this before i can go deeper into explaining all that.

This piece of hardware has nothing to do with patents, there is nothing to be patented. So that's a non issue in this case, but i sure will keep it in mind for future projects.

Open Source has evolved into the market so why should laws and markets stay stuck in the past with laws of the past. It's also good for capitalism to go along with this evolution. If it anchors itself down in the past then it just a matter of waiting until the chain brakes, the ship turns loose, and then it will get lost in the waves and sink. I don't see Open Source disappear. And humanity is about freedom and so that will also be an issue that never stops. So why fight all that? It's more easy to embrace these things and evolve into something with a future, instead of forcefully live in the stone age.
And then me being in Europe and most of the being talk in US law speak also doesn't help when reading a license. And i know the US commercial approach is VERY commercial compared to many other countries. (far more aggressive) And in a way this is something that European companies should do better on the foreign market. (Arduino for instance) The Chinese copycat Arduino's have this aggressive low price that is even more competitive then the US overpricing strategy. And their quality is in some cases just as good or even better (SOME cases, definitely not all cases hehehe)

True, I'm not worried for clones of my little project, but I am looking into this also for other future projects that might be more sensitive to cloning. And maybe in this case clones might be not a bad thing to pull the price down for some 50% or so. But still cloning isn't the answer for anything that's why i look for something in a license that might make it possible to allow some back-flow into the community. if possible at all...

The whole isdea is also aimed at the DIY reprappers and not as being included into kits, although its still possible so why not. But thats not up to me. Even if it turns out to be usedby a hand full of people then my goal is reached. Look at what i'm learning right now. This is part of the goal of this project. It would just be interesting to see what happens, there are many things i need to learn about. So this project still seems to be just right. Not to big, no big ambitions. Still very useful to a small group and it can introduce me to all the aspects in the field in small steps.

And it's great that you don't have to agree with anyone to be able to gain insight in things.
I'm sure you have the right intentions and are doing what works best for you and also for many others. The difference is in the fact that i'm not trying to run a company (though maybe in the future who knows) So yes, i do see many of the issues, but they just don't apply to my situation right now.

And i even wonder if there is any license that will actually cover the things good enough that i'd like to be covered. So i'm well aware that i might be looking for something extremely difficult, but that's no reason to not explore the possibilities. Once I understand the full implications of one licence over another then i'm getting somewhere. Though the road seems to be very long with many twists and turns. I will look closer at Arduino, there seems to be something there that partially is parallel to what i'm trying to do. For them the Trademark makes sense, although it doesn't seem to be a friendly choice towards their license. Still they seem to be able to keep the same license and trademark running together. How is that possible?

As you can see, you triggered a lot of thought processes here. So thanks for that. I hope i can find my way trough this jungle.

It looks like things have changed even more.

TAPR depricated its NC license. So now there isn't even a license left that actually covers Non Commercial use?

With all the things i have been reading the whole License stuff doesn't get any clearer to me. I admid i'm not good with all the legal talk and i hate the bureaucratic stuff.
At this poit it looks like the Licenses are only there to protect the ones who use OpenSource to produce and make money and they don't cover ANYTHING to actually help the community.

Yes they do promote communities to grow, but there seems to be a big gap when it comes to support a community. When you promote communities to grow then those communities need stuff. (like servers, software, build spaces, tools, electricity bills etc.) And the ones who just grab and produce the hardware and make LOTS of money are not sharing anything back to the communities and i don't see anything in any license that even comes close to cover this.

So please someone enlighten me why this is not covered by a license.

If this is what Open Hardware is about then yes it is open for all companies to grab and take whatever they can without ever giving anything back to the ones who made the effort to actually create all the designs.

And this logically results in projects moving to closed source.

Am I missing some info here? Because if this all is the case then i'm actually happy that copycats exist. The clones are for me at this point in my research THE ONLY THING that ACTUALLY gave the communities SOMETHING back by being just plain cheap.

So now please come on and attack me on every little detail you can find. I really want to learn something here!

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BackEMF


Am I missing some info here? Because if this all is the case then i'm actually happy that copycats exist. The clones are for me at this point in my research THE ONLY THING that ACTUALLY gave the communities SOMETHING back by being just plain cheap.

by being plain cheap, yes to a degree it helps the end user/builder, but the developer doesn't get anything out of it expect being pointed towards for support

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Yes, thanks for pointing that out, and thats why I it looks like there in'st actually a good license available for what I have in mind.

I know i have to get my head around all the details, i see i still have a few things confused.

Somethings that go though my mind are like:

Public domain 'license' would actually allow the copycats to be legal. But that also grands the greedy bunch to grab without any level of fair backsharing of updates / evolutions. So that's not an option
Creative commons [creativecommons.org] doesn't seem to be the right thing for hardware and it doesn't really allow production. (or is there a way to grand permits to manufacturers? (Doesn't look like it)

In regard to the support i'm also looking if there are ways to make support not being a part of the project. If a licence would say that the product is 'As is' with documentation and eventually a Google group kind of thing for self help discussions where the developers only are lurking to look for point of improvement but have no obligation to actually support anyone.
This is a bit backward, but it might be an option to 'communicate' the issue of not having a truly useful license model available.

All the licenses allow the ones who make the big bucks to sit back and don't care, and actually force the developer to develop for free, support for free, make upgrades for free, deal with producton errors FOR FREE and deal with angry customers. There is this 'no liability' clause. but that doesn't mean that eventual production faults en up in the support section.
All these things make me think: Is there a way to make an external manufacturer pay 1% of the retail price as a donation to the community. They are afterall the ones who make the big proffits.

I'm just thinking out loud. I know there are deeper issues but i'm sure there should be a better way. Something closer to GNU's Free as in freedom but not as in free beer. People may earn money on GNU software. And still the Source is Free (not just open) But then all of that clearly for hardware.

I actually see that it whouldn't be a bad thing to have some kind of 'RepRap licence' that's more friendly to the actual developers who spent time and money to actually create the stuff.

The licenses to me feel like I'm the one who has to choose the most friendly way to become a slave of my own idea's. And that just doesn't feel right. Especially when others just grab the money and spit the support back to the developers, then wait for an upgrade and do the same thing over again, and just say. Yeah thats the way it suppose to work! It's just a means of production and distribution.
And no please DO NOT use ANY NC license thats bad for YOU. but in faft it would be better for you but it would make it a BIG part harder for them to simply grab the design and squeese some money out of it.

Wealth without money is a very nice idea, but with the current licences i don't see how this is the case.
And maybe there should also be a intermediate 'Wealth with a little less money' option as a first step toward a situation without money to make it more easy to sing along with Michael Jackson and "Make that Change". :-D


BTW. I'm not trying to change the world, I do see the world IS changing. I can, and will, not change that. I'm only looking for a way to evolve along with those changes without being a slave of those changes and without enslaving others. In other words I seek a license that is fair to most, if not all, the parties involved.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2014 10:40PM by BackEMF.

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BackEMF

Am I missing some info here? Because if this all is the case then i'm actually happy that copycats exist. The clones are for me at this point in my research THE ONLY THING that ACTUALLY gave the communities SOMETHING back by being just plain cheap.

What you are missing is that there is nothing you can do short of a patent that will protect any of your hardware IP. Period. End of story. The applicability of an NC license to hardware isn't an opinion but a legal fact. There is no such thing as an NC hardware license that is enforceable under current law.. People, many of whom should know better release hardware objects under what they consider an NC license in spite of the fact it has no legal basis and is not only unenforceable but runs contrary to established IP law. The issue at hand isn't the licensing, it's a lack of understanding how those licenses can be legally applied and what constitutes a copyright-able work of art. Just because someone decides some bit of hardware is released as NC doesn't mean it's an enforceable license. Personally I feel the developer should release the work however they see fit. However, that doesn't change the legal fact that there is no such thing as an NC license for hardware designs that aren't patented. To say otherwise is simply incorrect and not knowledgeable of the law.

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So the law forces us to be slaves of our own work simply because the fact that there is no (seems to be no) license that respects the creator of the work?

Since this is how it feels to me. The licences seem to be constructed from the production point of view, twisted with wordings as if it is written from the creators point of view. Misleading the creators and playing in the hand of the commercial entities.

YAIKS! Did I just write that?? I really have been reading to many legal yaddayadda.... But really I don't see why I, as being the creator, should willingly subject myself to a commercial monster with the one of few the licenses to choose from.

And OK, lets forget the whole NC stuff, as it is deprecated already. Lets focus on the future. Where do I find a licence that:

1. Respects me (or the community) as a creator. (and doesn't push me into slavery of my own work)
2. Respects the community for giving the support
3. Puts the commercial AFTER the community, and not BEFORE.

I know this license probably doesn't exist, but that's no reason not to raise the issue, and accept slavery so to speak.

TAPR for instance refers to Stallmans GNU as if they try to achieve the same thing, but I don't yet see how. Not that I NEED it to be like GNU, but when someone refers to GNU and does the opposite OF GNU. Well how does that work? Isn't that false presumption? Misleading? It's all law talk. So i expect them to understand themselves before they try to make me understand.

And yes, I'm all new to this.. So i can be extremely wrong. But that's why I started this topic.
I also realise that I might be sounding a bit aggressive, but I don't simply take no for an answer. And I try to reason where NO comes from and then try to explore the options for YES, maby, Eventually, probably not, etc.

This area is evolving just like the hardware itself, so shutting evolution down by saying NO. Period, end of story really doesn't make sense at all.
The only endpoint at this moment is something like. With the current 'known' licenses it's not an option. Meaning: Maybe in the future there will be an option.

As long as there is room for evolution then things can and will evolve. And there is always room for evolution, a balloon will burst once the outer skin no longer can support the evolving air pressure on the inside. Then you get a loud bang and evolution starts to fly all over the place. Blocking evolution is a bit old-fashioned. (Bureaucratic)

The field effect is everywhere, and still people put a fence around the field. Not being aware that they fence themselves in and lock evolution out. And thus stay stuck in their own field until evolution brakes the fence. And then all of a sudden they have to admit that evolution wins after all. So work against evolution? It's more easy to go with the flow and embrace evolution.

Hmm I'm not making things easy for myself here... But i learn best from big mistakes.

Also I'm not saying that TAPR or CERN are bad licences. They sure help to get academic idea's on to the market so for that purpose they seem to be a perfect tool.

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vegasloki
there is nothing you can do short of a patent that will protect any of your hardware IP. Period.

There's more on this planet than just the law. People act upon other's opinions, on convenience, on reception, ... many aspects.

In fact, one can easily argument that, given a hobbyist's low budget, considering the law as protection is pointless. It doesn't protect, because you can't (or don't want to) pay the lawyer required to defend it.

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BackEMF
And yes, I'm all new to this.

Right. And my impression is, you make way too much a headache about this licensing stuff. Choosing the right color for your PCB might be much more important.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

True.

This stuff is just not right. ...If I understand it correct. And maybe it's because i find it a shame that there is no nice RepRap friendly license.
At this point i'm leaning toward finding the most restrictive license and jut think about myself although thats just what i tried to avoid.

This license stuff really needs to evolve.
I'll keep the Source CLOSED until there is a license that I can live with. Weird that this is what it pans out to. I didn't start an Open Source project to end up making it closed.

But thanks everyone, I still learned something here.