[Discuss] EOMA68 Libre Hardware Standard and Libre Software project, currently crowd-funding (deadline expires 26th aug 2016)

Wed Aug 24 17:05:14 UTC 2016

That's a great way to put it, but that part did start with the software.
Open source software was named based on the idea that you needed the
"source" file in order to understand and modify the software. Distributing
just the binary file is pretty much exactly the same as distributing a
piece of hardware without the design documents.

The difference between libre and open will of course follow us into the
hardware realm because libre is a moral standard. As Stallman wrote,
"...establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all on teaching
people to value freedom."
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

You naturally gravitate to the libre camp when you assign *intrinsic *value
to freedom, and you naturally gravitate to the open camp when you
assign *market
*value to freedom. If you tend to think "but how valuable is freedom if
nobody ever uses it?" then you'll probably tack towards open. All
technology occupies a place in an ecosystem of other technologies and
reproduces/spreads based on its relationship to those other technologies.
The more restrictions placed on the relationships it can form, the more
retarded its growth. Libre places an important limitation on technologies
to which it is applied; a requirement that downstream users cannot ever
lock it up. That means libre technology will never have the growth
potential of open technology, which places minimal restrictions on
relationships. The libre mindset makes sense when an intrinsic value is
threatened; it's priceless and can't be compromised. The open mindset makes
sense when a market value is threatened; just weigh the return on
investment.

So the open source calculation results in the idea that it's okay to allow
downstream users to lock up the copy of the technology they got if they
want to. The assumption is that their thing immediately becomes an
evolutionary dead-end and the rest of the open source ecosystem will route
around it. The open camp wants to make good solutions that solve lots of
problems and restricting options gets in the way of that goal.

The libre calculation, on the other hand, wants to first ensure that all
sapient beings that ever exist have the opportunity to use the technology,
even if nobody ever actually ends up using it. The freedom is the point,
not the growth.

All of that is very consistent in software because copyright is one legal
standard that applies to everything.

But, like Mario said, we still have one legal standard that applies to
everything in hardware, which is that there is no standard. Hardware is
libre by default. Hardware, in the sense of functional items (as opposed to
say decorative items), requires a phenomenal amount of work to obtain
relatively limited protection through patents.

The complication is that the "source" of hardware is a fundamentally
different kind of thing from the hardware itself. Copyright applies to the
source. That confuses people because they tend to forget that whatever
license that's applied to the documentation stops at the documentation and
has nothing to do with the actual hardware.

What's more, unlike in pure software, hardware cannot be developed or
shared for free (as in beer). We have to help people build businesses
around hardware sharing because every part of it costs money. Businesses
already implicitly understand that hardware is inherently free, as proven
by the fact that they're so worried about their hardware being copied. They
know there's nothing they can do about it.

But that's not a bad thing, it's just a trade-off. Not only is hardware
already inherently libre itself, it makes more sense to favor the open
source approach of emphasizing growth. This is because of the inherent cost
of working with hardware. Software is so cheap because it gets economies of
scale from the vast amount of networks, processors, and memory sitting
idle. Hardware only gets cheap when it gets economies of scale too! It
makes sense to emphasize growth for shared hardware because the more widely
it's supported the cheaper it gets.

I saw something about an Arduino small enough to fit into a battery tray
along with the battery. That's the kind of thing that enables everyone to
use Arduino and it never would have happened if Arduino hadn't achieved
economies of scale.

In other words, in order to approach the potential of libre/open in
hardware we have to make it as easy as possible to replicate and distribute
the hardware. Thus, the open source mindset is more appropriate. It doesn't
matter if a computer respects the freedoms of its users if only a couple
hundred people can afford to use it.

On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 7:24 PM, Mario Gómez <mxgxw.alpha at gmail.com> wrote:

> And that would be really great!
>
> However, in my opinion, in this thread we are trying to extrapolate the
> "limitations" of the copyright world to the hardware world like if they
> were the same thing and were governed by the same legislation. But they are
> not, and "libre" in the software context may not mean the same or have the
> same implications for the hardware development.
>
> I would really love to see that most of the hardware is 100% free of any
> patents and documented at the lowest manufacturing level (this is actually
> possible for an artistic low-tech handcrafted device, but is really hard to
> achieve for something more complex or if it uses even a simple
> semiconductor).
>
> In this thread I got the impression that many people is just taking the
> literal meaning of "libre" from the software development world and is
> trying to put it in the hardware development world without realize that in
> the copyright world everything is propietary unless the contrary is
> specified and *you don't have the freedom to make changes to it by
> default*. That freedom is the one that Stallman fought for with his
> copyleft licenses.
>
> In hardware you already have the freedom of making changes to the hardware
> that you own. What you do not have, especially in the latests years, is the
> sources, the know how or something as simple as the BOM. So what you are
> missing is the "Source/Desing files of the Hardware" not the "freedom to
> make changes", and that the reason why I prefeer to use "Open Source
> Hardware" instead "Free/Libre Hardware".
>
> Regards,
> Mario.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 9:40 AM, Marcin Jakubowski <
> marcin at opensourceecology.org> wrote:
>
>> Free of Patents and Free of Trade Secrets are both choices that society
>> can make. Such choices can be the norm once civilization evolves to
>> freedom. Today, the situation looks grim - but the choice is ours to make.
>>
>> Marin
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Mario Gómez <mxgxw.alpha at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> > i'm genuinely curious to know why people are avoiding the use of the
>>> word "Libre".
>>>
>>> Hi! A native spanish speaker here.
>>>
>>> I remember pretty well that originally the world "libre" was not used
>>> for nothing because Stallman always explained "free as in freedom not as in
>>> free beer". However not many people like to read clarifications so the
>>> world "libre" (that in spanish means literally freee as in freedom) was
>>> suggested to be used instead "free" even in documents written in english.
>>>
>>> As you can see, in spanish we don't have that ambiguity because we have
>>> two words "gratis" that means "free as in free beer" and "libre" that means
>>> "free as in freedom". And the translations talking about "free/libre
>>> software", since I remember, always used the word "libre" instead "gratis",
>>> so we never had this kind of definition ambiguities in the first place.
>>>
>>> In the world of the software development the legal framework that
>>> applies in most parts of the world is the copyright legislation. The
>>> copyright legislation grants exclusive explotation rights to the owner even
>>> if the owner doesn't ask for a registration of their works. So, Stallman
>>> used this legislation as a basis to write a license that guarantees certain
>>> freedoms to the copyright licensee (or the final user).
>>>
>>> In the world of the hardware development in most parts of the world you
>>> don't have exclusive explotation rights for a device or "invention". You
>>> can make an exact copy of a machine and no-one can prevent you to sell it,
>>> modify it or change the way it works. In that sense many legislations
>>> already give you the "freedoms" to make any changes that you want to the
>>> hardware that you own. If you look at the hardware from this perspective
>>> you'll notice that free/libre software licenses tried to bring to the
>>> copyright world something that was a matter of fact in the hardware world.
>>> Of course there are exceptions for example with firearms or RF devices but
>>> they are usually exceptions and not the rule.
>>>
>>> If you want to have a exclusive right of a "hardware thing" you must
>>> register your device as a "novel" invention throught a "patent". And
>>> depending on the local legislation of a country you cannot patent certain
>>> things.
>>>
>>> Currently to "protect" hardware designs what people usually do is:
>>> Patent something or if is not patentable they use the figure commercial
>>> trade secrets deliverately hidding key information about how certain things
>>> are fabricated or done. But again, nothing prevents you of doing
>>> reverse-engineering to make a similar product. People also combines
>>> "artistic decorations" and trademarks within their products so they can
>>> apply for copyright protections in case someone makes a 1:1 clone of their
>>> products.
>>>
>>> For me (and this is my personal opinion) when you talk about "libre
>>> hardware" (or hardware libre in spanish syntax) it could mean two things: *Free
>>> of patents* (an statement hard to make considering the high number of
>>> frivolous patents out there) or *Free of trade secrets* (no part of the
>>> construction process is hidden to the owner, another statement hard to
>>> make... unless you are able to show me the litography and design documents
>>> used for every chip included in your "libre device").
>>>
>>> I think that both statemets are un-realistic and are not possible to
>>> replicate with the same meaning in the hardware world. I'm not going to
>>> copy the Open Source Hardware definition here, but is clear that what we
>>> pretend is the devices under this "philosophy" are well documented, modular
>>> and replicable so anyone with technical expertice could replicate/modify
>>> them more easily and do with them whatever they want.
>>>
>>> In the software world if you modify a software without authorization
>>> you'll could face penal prosecution in some jurisdictions just for doing
>>> the modifications. In the hardware world, if you modify a hardware that you
>>> own the worst thing that could happen is that you can void your guarantee.
>>> Of course, if someone is harmed by your modifications you can also face
>>> legal consecuences, but this consecuences are not directly derived from a
>>> legislation that prevents you doing that, but for the direct effects of
>>> whatever you did wrong.
>>>
>>> In other words... The "libertad" (freedom) that you are seeking for the
>>> Open Source Hardware is already there and protected by many legislations
>>> around the world so for me the world "libre" just generates confusion and
>>> unnecesary flamewars.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Mario.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 11:07 AM, lkcl . <luke.leighton at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Antoine C.
>>>> <smallwindturbineproj.contactor at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > Le 20/08/2016 00:08, lkcl . a écrit :
>>>> >> so did not have time to find
>>>> >> the OSHWA until someone very recently mentioned it
>>>> > Hi l.,
>>>> > just to know,
>>>> > and if you mind
>>>> > (feel free to not answer if you feel the following too boring),
>>>> > may I ask you the two following additional questions,
>>>> > which are, I'm afraid,
>>>> > not technical about you great achievement (by the way: Bravo !):
>>>> > 1) have you already heard of, got information about, the OHANDA
>>>> project
>>>> > [1][2] ?
>>>>
>>>>  now i have
>>>>
>>>> > 2) from your point of view, why the existence of OSHWA (and OHANDA)
>>>> > projects took so long time to come to you ?
>>>>
>>>>  because i've been focussing on getting the job done, as opposed to
>>>> either (a) finding people to *collaborate* on getting the job done or
>>>> (b) advertising *that* i am focussed on getting the job done.
>>>>
>>>>  hardware design and component sourcing is so intense that i can't
>>>> focus on both.  it's only from this crowdfunding campaign - where i've
>>>> stopped all work on the hardware designs and focussed exclusively 100%
>>>> on communications - that i've found (or had the opportunity to find)
>>>> tons of like-minded and interested people.
>>>>
>>>> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Hardware_and_Design_Alliance
>>>>
>>>>  aaargh, they took the four freedoms - even *say* it's "based on free
>>>> software" - and then lost the golden opportunity to *call* it "Libre
>>>> Hardware and Design Alliance".  if it qualifies as "Libre" they should
>>>> *use* the word "Libre".  there's nothing in that definition 0 which
>>>> permits hardware-level DRM locking, so there's no "lobster-trap" gate
>>>> as there is when people use the word "open"....
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> l.
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>>>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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