[Discuss] keeping the certification discussion going

[Antoine C]

Dear Matt,
and dear all,

What you suggest, Matt, *might* be a great way to see OSHWA
certification as a non-aggression tool. It seems a smart sideviewing.

Maybe the day OSH concept would be clearly based on licences clearly and
commonly accepted by strongest FLOSS licensers organizations - ie: by
OSI, FSF, APACHE, MOZILLA , ... - , when this day appears, it might
clear everything.
Maybe, as long as key international expert people in FLOSS licenses
validation fields, keep claiming that Open Source Hardware is not yet a
full valid concept, we might keep having difficulty to define safety OSH
certification.
See for example,
https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-hardware-designs.en.html talking about
"functional" hardwares:
<cite>
 "When one object has decorative aspects and functional aspects, you get
into tricky ground"
</cite>

People in hacklabs I meet, still keep sceptical about OSH basis. They
feel that every thing is not so clear. In one had, they understand that
they could use licenses, let's say "FSF approved", but not for
functional things. And in the other hand, they understand that there are
TAPR and CERN OHLs, but as those licences are not approved by FSF, those
licences might be not-so-great for all.
For them, a thing made with atoms, is OSH, when its entire development
process, and its entire production process, and the possible
reproduction of future development process and production process, are
clearly available under a valid licence and freely accessible by the
net, for the entire upstream and downstream flows.
If OSHWA certification process, is validated by OSI, FSF, APACHE, etc
... for any functional or non-functional things made with atoms, then,
there might be a highter probability of acceptance by deep FLOS culture
people.

I don't know if this approach could help.
If you consider it as a troll, then please, forget it.

Thanks a lot Matt for having relaunch the prolonging of this discussion
thematic.

Antoine C.


Le 05/12/2015 23:57, Matt Maier a écrit :
> I put together my thoughts following the last OSHWA
> hangout. http://www.atthatmatt.com/open-source/open-source-hardware/oshwas-certification-a-stable-opinion-on-open-source-hardware/
> 
> Summary: OSHWA's Certification is a great way to expand the open source
> hardware community. It provides a stable opinion on what "open source
> hardware" means that is low effort and totally optional. The stability
> will give organizations confidence that they can invest in open source
> hardware with minimal worry that the standards will change or bad actors
> will dilute their value. The enforcement part is just there to guarantee
> the stability. Stability has value so if we want to partake of that
> value we have to trade something, and in this case it's agreeing to be
> corrected if we get something wrong.
> 
> Here's an idea for the mark
> Inline image 1
> 
> 
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