[Discuss] wikifab license

Tue Sep 6 09:51:17 UTC 2016

Hi Clement,

interesting project, I will add it to our list of repositories, [1]

Reading your license page, [2], I have some more comments.

You distinguish there between a "License on the instructions" and a
"License on the objects". That seems strange, at least for cases of
digital fabrication. Let me explain:

Legal scholars (see: Margoni, [3]) argue that copyright can most of the
times be asserted over at least parts of the design documentation,
including the CAD files.

Then for the production of the physical object based on that design,
this is seen as a reproduction, when there is a high degree of identity.

This can be compared to 2D printing of 2D files: they are also treated
as reproduction. As long as the license permits reproduction, the 3D
printing would be permitted.

This is to say that one license for the design documentation should be
sufficient to also cover the resulting objects.

When however a resulting object is merely inspired by some
documentation, whatever copyright license it has, it shouldn't be able
to control that. This will fall out of the scope of probably any
license, unless you want to involve patents.

That said, right now I can't imagine how you consider the "License on
objects" to be different from the instructions/documentation license. I
do see the need for a free software license, as you do differentiate for
as well.

Also you mention the "GNU Free Hardware Designs License": is there such
license really? Please let me know. I had the understanding that the GNU
FDL would be one possible license to make hardware designs free hardware
designs or open source hardware.

[1] http://wiki.freeknowledge.eu/index.php/Design_Sharing_Platforms
[2]
http://feedback.wikifab.org/t/under-which-open-license-can-i-publish-my-tutorial-on-wikifab/30
[3] Thomas Margoni, 2013, Not for Designers: On the Inadequacies of EU
Design Law and How to Fix It.
http://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/JIPITEC_2013_3.pdf

best,

Wouter

On 06-09-16 09:20, Matt Maier wrote:
> Hi Clement,
> 
> I suspected the people who would establish a site like wikifab would
> also be on the OSHW mailing list ;)
> 
> Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense.
> 
> I'll hold further questions until after the next email.
> 
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 7:29 PM, Clément Flipo <clement.flipo at gmail.com
> <mailto:clement.flipo at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Matt, Hi all,
> 
>     I am Clément Flipo, co-founder of Wikifab.
> 
>     You're right, this is unclear. Sorry for that...
> 
>     Wikifab is in fact made of multiple extensions for Mediawiki
>     (Mediawiki is released under the GNU General Public License).
> 
>     We have developed new extensions (those are under MIT license) and
>     other extensions that are modification of existing ones. Our
>     modifications of these modified extensions are made under the same
>     license than it was originally (generally GNU).
> 
>     The "CC-AA" is a mistake. I will correct it now. In fact the
>     CC licenses concerns the content hosted on Wikifab (the
>     open hardware projects). If you want to discuss about the licenses
>     for open hardware projects, we have created this topic
>     <http://feedback.wikifab.org/t/under-which-open-license-can-i-publish-my-tutorial-on-wikifab/30>
>     on our forum.
> 
>     I'll send another message to this list to explain what we are up to
>     at Wikifab and talk about more general topics.
> 
>     Thanks a lot.
> 
>     Best,
>     Clément
> 
> 
>     On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 6:01 PM, Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com
>     <mailto:blueback09 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>         This is a new website trying to help document OSHW. 
>         http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Main_Page
>         <http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Main_Page>
> 
>         Their license is unclear because on this page they say
>         http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Wikifab:About
>         <http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Wikifab:About>
> 
>         "Wikifab source code is released under the MIT license and is
>         freely downloadable on Github. The documentation to install your
>         own Wikifab instance can be found here."
> 
>         ...but on this page they say...
>         http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Wikifab:Organization
>         <http://en.wikifab.org/index.php/Wikifab:Organization>
> 
>         "If individuals or cooperatives wish to sell Wikifab software,
>         they are free to do so, although modifications of the Wikifab
>         software have to be licensed under the open source license CC-AA."
> 
>         There's no such thing as the CC-AA license and at any rate the
>         CC licenses aren't the same thing as the MIT license.
>         https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
>         <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/>
> 
> 
>         _______________________________________________
>         discuss mailing list
>         discuss at lists.oshwa.org <mailto:discuss at lists.oshwa.org>
>         http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>         <http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     -- 
>     *Clément FLIPO*
>     Adresse : 129 boulevard Voltaire • 75011 PARIS | Mobile : +33 6
>     42.49.78.13 <tel:%2B33%206%2042.49.78.13>
> 
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> 
> 
> 
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