[Discuss] Publish OSHW with CC0?

Tiberius Brastaviceanu tiberius.brastaviceanu at gmail.com
Thu Oct 30 14:42:06 UTC 2014


Interesting discussion, I learned something here.
Within the www.sensorica.co network we have chosen to share hardware
designs with CC BY.

I think it depends on your goals. If the guy doesn't care about what might
happen with his hardware, I guess it's fine. I like the spirit of WTFPL.

I look at things from an economic perspective and I ask myself how to
stimulate economic development, which means to increase the efficiency of
processes like innovation, production, distribution... I work around
commons-based peer production and I think that in order to stimulate
innovation we need to let others modify and remix our work, but in order
for this to function properly, we also need to put in place a feedback
mechanism. This is why I think it is important to be able to find out who
is using the design and what improvements others have made on it. The share
alike clause is also important, because we don't want someone to modify or
remix and close. We want this new economy based on sharing to spread,
therefore it needs a viral aspect.

So for me it's more than an individual thing. I do have a mission and I
want things to fall into place in a way that encourage the emergence and
development of commons-based peer production. I want us, as a global
society, to become more effective and efficient.

See more on the open value network model.
http://valuenetwork.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page


On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Mastro Gippo <gipmad at gmail.com> wrote:

> I released some of my projects under the WTFPL, check it out.
>
> MG
> On Oct 30, 2014 1:28 PM, "Michael Weinberg" <mweinberg at publicknowledge.org>
> wrote:
>
>> I'll preface this by saying that I don't know the details of your
>> friend's project so his mileage may vary and this is not legal advice.
>> However, a few high level points worth keeping in mind:
>>
>> - CC0 (and all CC licenses) are copyright licenses.  Copyright is a
>> default-on type of protection, so some sort of dedication (like CC0) is
>> necessary if you want your copyright-protected work to be in the public
>> domain.
>>
>> - Copyright does not protect everything. Specifically (in this case),
>> copyright does not protect functional objects.  Functional objects fall
>> within the scope of patent.  Unlike copyright, patent is a default-off type
>> of protection.  If you  make a functional object, it is in the public
>> domain automatically unless you protect it with a patent.  You don't need
>> to take any additional steps to put it into the public domain.
>>
>> - What does this mean?  If I make a catapult, any non-functional designs
>> on the catapult (skulls and whatnot) are protected by copyright.  Probably
>> so are my schematics for the catapult.  But the catapult itself is not
>> protected by copyright and is default in the public domain.  Putting a  CC0
>> license on my schematic gives people the ability to copy the schematics
>> freely, but has no impact on their ability to copy the catapult itself
>> (because it is already in the public domain).
>>
>> -I don't know what "the public domain mark" is, but if it is only
>> descriptive I don't know why it couldn't be applied equally to works that
>> entered the public domain "naturally" (either because the copyright expired
>> or because they were never protected by copyright/patent in the first
>> place) or through some sort of dedication like CC0.
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 3:41 AM, Antoine, as a contact of a free
>> smallwindturbine project <smallwindturbineproj.contactor at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> > to release an electronics device
>>>
>>> My understanding is: as your friend wants a tangible things and its
>>> upstream and downstream manufacturing chain to be into public domain
>>> (or equivalent), then, a CC licence can not really match.
>>>
>>> From my understanding, using a open licence specially designed for
>>> tangible things would be preferable: TAPR or CERN-OHL.
>>>
>>> Don't you think ?
>>>
>>> Freely,
>>>
>>> Antoine
>>>
>>> 2014-10-30 6:13 UTC+01:00, Eric Thompson <eric at lowvoltagelabs.com>:
>>> > I don't recall exactly what he said during the interview but I seem to
>>> > remember that Ian from Dangerous Prototypes talked about this during an
>>> > interview on The Amp Hour podcast.
>>> >
>>> > If you look at the Bus Pirate documentation, it lists the PCB art and
>>> > Firmware as CC-0.
>>> > http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate#License
>>> >
>>> > - Eric
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Drew Fustini <pdp7pdp7 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Hi, a friend at my hackerspace here in Chicago wants to release an
>>> >> electronics device he's designed as OSHW.  It is a pure analog system
>>> >> with no firmware.
>>> >>
>>> >> He doesn't care about attribution, commercial use, derivatives or
>>> >> copyleft restrictions.   He said he basically wants to make the design
>>> >> public domain.  My understanding is that Creative Commons CC0 is
>>> >> preferable to public domain.
>>> >>
>>> >> Anyone have thoughts on releasing hardware designs as CC0?
>>> >> Is there are better option given he doesn't want to reserve any
>>> rights?
>>> >>
>>> >> thanks!
>>> >> drew
>>> >> http://keybase.io/pdp7
>>> >> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>
>>> >
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Michael Weinberg, Vice President, PK Thinks
>> 202-861-0020 (o) | @mweinbergPK
>>
>> Public Knowledge | @publicknowledge | www.publicknowledge.org
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>>
>> Promoting a Creative & Connected Future.
>>
>>
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t!b! <http://www.google.com/profiles/tiberius.brastaviceanu>
co-founder of SENSORICA <http://www.sensorica.co>,
an open, decentralized and self-organizing
value network (an open enterprise)

founder of Multitude Project <https://sites.google.com/site/multitude2008/>

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