[Discuss] Need help picking a license / language support

Cameron Adamez cameron at suspectdevices.com
Wed Mar 20 15:54:33 UTC 2013


Hi everyone,
I found out that I've had my first Asian hardware clone! Truly an exciting moment for an amateur like myself.
This is my version, which was my first open source hardware fork ever. The original design is from LeafLabs, who I have contacts with and know about / approve of my fork.
https://github.com/soycamo/maplebacon
The purpose of forking the project:
http://www.suspectdevices.com/blahg/arm/very-good-very-nice-very-easy-i-wish-you-could-smell-this/

I was pointed to someone who made a derivative of my board:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAPLE-Mini-R3-STM32F103CB-ARM-Cortex-M3-Bootloader-Ready-For-Arduino-Maple-IDE-/121030415704?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2df99558

I emailed the seller who said that they didn't know how to use Github, but sent me what is presumably their modifications to the board (I haven't opened the files yet). The funny thing is that we explicitly had the board fabbed in the USA because we wanted to support our local economy.

I now see several issues that need to be resolved with my own original designs in the future:
1) How do I pick a license that is as permissive as BSD/MIT and requires acknowledgement of myself as the creator (and to be contacted upon sale)?
2) How do I make sure that the license is in several languages?
3) How do I point non-English speakers to OSHWA to explain my rationale and principles?
4) Are there resources online explaining how GitHub works in other languages?

-Cameron Adamez


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