We’ve always gone public domain because none of the licensing models offered us any substantial protection. Even patent is, in our area (shelter) very unreliable because of the mass of unsearchable prior art from the 1960s shelter design explosion, and submarine patents.

Hope that’s helpful.

1. The lack of open-source culture among component makers
2. IP, lack of adequate open licenses, patents
3. The MakerBot derivatives controversy
4. The public patent proposal
5. Patents are NOT the issue, argues Sam Rose

On one hand I have learned most of “hacking” from other projects, dissecting designs, implementing circuits, “stealing” modules and pieces – so I want to add to this body of knowledge. On the other hand, I don’t want someone else (especially a big company) to get rich of my work when I still need to pay off my student loans.

This is definitely a grey area… Ladyada and others make an interesting argument for removing the Non-Commercial restriction from your license. http://www.ladyada.net/library/openhardware/license.html

Some other interesting readings

http://www.instructables.com/community/Open-source-Hardware-License—creative-commons-li/

http://antipastohw.blogspot.com/2010/01/grand-unifying-theory-of-open-source.html

But the definition of open hardware should be broadened.

Products which are “hacker friendly” (for example well supported with documentation, provided with real open source drivers, support of home brewed firmware etc) but do not have an open design, should also get a (different) OH-logo attached to them.

What about including a notice in every file so that it is necessarily visible to the user of that file? I mean include it within the drawings themselves and a kind of “footnote”, not as a text in a binary file, but rather as a vector text within the drawing itself… I mean not in some “hidden” code comment but in an immediatelly visible way so that the “user” (developer, contrubutor, coincidental viewer) of the file just sees it and cant ignore it. Texturing the surface of a 3D model with such a notice would be another way. I think this could have at least some legal force, couldnt it?

Finally, we could end up using multiple ways of protection at the same time. Do usual licences (GPL etc. for copyrightable stuff), do a click-wrap thing, do notices in files in case someone omits the click-wrap, do trademark at the same time etc. I think mixing the most possible protections together could enhance the force of all these “protections” (I mean to protect some freedoms here of course, like GPL does for instance).

And that’s just one jurisdiction—imagine the difficulties of writing an agreement that holds up in the major North American and European jurisdictions at least. Even the big companies with their huge legal divisions fail at that tasks (their EULAs are regularly invalid in some parts)…

Another issue is the passing on of information—whoever spreads such “click-wrapped” free information, would have the burden of making the other party accept the click-wrap agreement as well. What if I spread the information ignoring this requirement? Clearly I have violated the license terms, but what about the person I gave it too? They don’t have violated anything, but they have got the information and can probably use it in any way they like (without being bound by the license which they didn’t accept).

I think that of course we should add a passage addressing the re-user and obliging him/her to re-apply the trademark to any physical device deriving from the original source. We would bind that to the freedoms we are granting, I guess. In other words: I give you the 4 freedoms and it is my precondition (or: my strong wish?) that you re-apply the trademark to any device derinving from my work.

Is that a legal contract? I am not sure, but I am not a lawyer either and therefore I cannot say if there is a way to make that a bullet-proof legal agreement. We should try to find that out, though!

Hm, that seems to boil down again to the same old problem: a legal obligation must be based on copyright or some other law, and copyright doesn’t not apply to the user’s behavior which you want to influence. I guess you could try to make it legally binding through some kind of “shrink-wrap license” instead (“you are only allowed to download this, if you agree to the following conditions”), but “shrink-wrap licenses” after problematic in various ways (e.g. they are probably ineffective in German law, and they would make free redistribution of the protected information difficult).

In my belief we are talking about a field of products and markets which include a lot of ideological load. There are other questions which are at least as relevant as law itself. Having a quick look at Porter’s Five Forces helps to estimate their relevance, I think.

If companies/manufacturers will use the trademark, they will do it not only due to ideological reasons. They will of course also do it, because they think it will add one or more advantages to their products and to their organisation and/or brand.

True, maybe it’s better to rely both on ethical pressure (this is what you SHOULD do) and practical motivations (“I WANT to call my hardware <insert trademark name>”) instead of legal obligations.

To move on with opening up the world, the trademark is at least a good next step which I would like to take until we may have found a better solution. I’d be happy to get your feedback and to learn more about what you think we should do next!

Hm, I would think the obvious thing would be to try to resolve the open issues (such as: how it is meant to work exactly?) as good as possible and get the whole idea into a form where it can actually be used. Do you need help? Is there a public mailing list or similar where you coordinate your activities?