[Discuss] OSHW Best Practices / Layers of Openness

[Alicia Gibb]

We have to remember also that enclosures are just an example of mechanical
types of open hardwre. There are also large scale things like open source
hardware farm equipment: http://opensourceecology.org/ And many other
mechanical projects include electronics as the secondary piece of its
functionality or are not present at all.

Alicia




On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Windell H. Oskay <windell at oskay.net> wrote:

>
> On Feb 28, 2013, at 11:21 AM, Chris Church <thisdroneeatspeople at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi Windell,
> >
> > This appears to leave my earlier question un-addressed: physical parts
> of our enclosures are part of our trade dress, must I give the full right
> to reproduce our trade dress (which I would be doing if I shared the
> machining files under CC for our enclosures) to claim my electronics are
> open-source?
>
> Hi Chris,
>   You are explicitly not required to share your trade dress.  OSHW
> community standards are quite clear about this.
>
> From the introduction to the OSHW definition (
> http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW ):
>
> "[...]persons or companies producing items ("products") under an OSHW
> license have an obligation to make it clear that such products are not
> manufactured, sold, warrantied, or otherwise sanctioned by the original
> designer and also not to make use of any trademarks owned by the original
> designer."
>
>
> Usually, with printed logos and so forth, this is pretty straightforward:
> Just leave those decorative trademark elements out of the design files when
> preparing files for OSHW documentation.
>
> However, if you are also claiming your functional front panel layout--
> where the holes for components are located, for example --as part of the
> trade dress, that's your choice.  But it is a choice that is incompatible
> with labeling that portion of your product as Open Source Hardware.
>
>
> Does putting OSHW inside a proprietary box of your own design make the
> stuff inside non-OSHW?  No, I don't think so.  But I do think that you that
> it prevents you putting an overall label of "OSHW" on the product.
>
>
> Cheers,
> -Windell
>
>
>
> Windell H. Oskay, Ph.D.
> Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
> Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
> 175 San Lazaro Ave, STE 150
> Sunnyvale CA 94086
> http://www.evilmadscientist.com/
>
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>
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