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Author Topic: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW  (Read 37087 times)

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Offline westfw

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #25 on: August 14, 2012, 11:51:27 pm »
One of the more ambiguous things that I've seen in the Arduino world is "cloners" whose main claim to fame is "we sell in country X, where buying electronics from overseas is somewhere between 'difficult' and 'prohibitive.'  By manufacturing locally, we sell to a market that would otherwise be all but unreachable."

I can live with those...
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #26 on: August 15, 2012, 12:05:01 am »
What your video states is you want the NC license's protection but not to actually use it.

No, you have it wrong. I do not want that.
I will support anyone's right to just copy or clone an OSHW project, I just don't agree that's it's a good thing to do.
I want people to contribute to and improve projects instead of just copying them.
The reason the OSHW community decided against the NC clause, is because they want people to build businesses and make money from it!
It was not an easy choice.
All they ask in return is that they prefer that people actually contribute something and improve the designs. Is that too much to ask?
If you just want to clone and offer nothing else, well, fine, clone, but don't expect to build up a rep in the community.

Yes, the licenses leave a lot to be desired. That is why there are generally some unwritten "just be nice and contribute" rules on top of it.
Otherwise the whole world is run by legal crap, down to the last letter and when and where you can fart, and that's a world that sucks.
The world is not just black and white, and defined by legal definitions. It's fuzzy. People have passions, people have emotions, people have opinions.

I am not wrong. A lot people go by these rules, and have done for many many decades, before you and I were born I'm willing to bet...
If you don't want to follow them, then that's fine, I support your right to do that.
If NC works for you and your project, great, use it, I support you and your choice.

Dave.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2012, 12:30:02 am by EEVblog »
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #27 on: August 15, 2012, 12:08:04 am »
One of the more ambiguous things that I've seen in the Arduino world is "cloners" whose main claim to fame is "we sell in country X, where buying electronics from overseas is somewhere between 'difficult' and 'prohibitive.'  By manufacturing locally, we sell to a market that would otherwise be all but unreachable."
I can live with those...

And so would the original designer in most cases.
In a case like that you would team up with the original designer and get them to promote you as a supplier.

Dave.
 

jucole

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #28 on: August 15, 2012, 11:27:27 am »
Dankers comment made a lot of sense to me;  I'm no expert in EE or OSH but I've often got the sense some OSH projects and some pushers of OSH are just riding the OSH wave to generate sales or other motives.

To me the true concept of OSH is you're giving your widget to the world no obligations!  There are no unwritten rules, there are only polite people and those that just don't care;  Dave is correct to push good manners though.  The aim of the cloners in TRUE OSH (or TOSH) is to reduce the price, so it's available to everyone! A good TOSH project will become really cheap after a while which in my opinion is the true goal.

For hardware projects that require profit for example in order to grow, don't release it as TOSH,  it's really noncommercial you need; so use a NC license, or even get yourself a trademark but don't pretend it's TOSH, as it's just not cool.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #29 on: August 15, 2012, 01:53:58 pm »
To me the true concept of OSH is you're giving your widget to the world no obligations! 

The legal obligations are in the license used.

Quote
There are no unwritten rules, there are only polite people and those that just don't care;  Dave is correct to push good manners though. 

Bingo, and that's what the "unwritten rules" are!
They are not rules that must  be followed.
Perhaps a better title would have been the "unwritten ethos" or "unwritten zeitgeist" or something like that.

Dave.
 

Offline westfw

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #30 on: August 16, 2012, 12:18:13 am »
Dave mentioned the history of open-source hardware before it was called that, but I don't think he emphasized it enough.  OSHW isn't new.  Back in the days of tube radios, if you opened up such a radio you would find a schematic.  Electronics hobby magazines (Radio Electronics, Popular Electronics, QST, and more) regularly published projects that included full schematics and PCB layouts.  Mainframe computers regularly shipped with enough hardware documentation that entities of a size that could buy them, could also design and build their own peripherals (attaching to "proprietary" buses.)  The whole "This is a black box and we're not going to tell you what's in it or how to do anything with other than be a standard consumer" philosophy is relatively recent, and the "current" OSHW movement is perhaps a reaction to that philosophy.

Both the licenses and the "unwritten rules" of OSHW are an attempt to explain how the world ought to behave, now that duplicating (and modifying) a project is so much easier than it used to be, from a production perspective...
 

jucole

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #31 on: August 16, 2012, 12:25:11 pm »
He's some nice info about Open Source.
There is an O'Reilly book called "Open Sources Voices from the Open Source Revolution" -  a good read for anyone interested in OS.
This link goes to an extract. http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/perens.html. There is a nice part on "Analysis of the Open Source Definition"

westfw's comment "The whole: "This is a black box and we're not going to tell you what's in it or how to do anything with other than be a standard consumer" philosophy is relatively recent, and the "current" OSHW movement is perhaps a reaction to that philosophy."
I believe is the main driving force behind OSHW together with the fact that creating hardware is just getting more accessible to the masses.
 

Offline kaindub

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #32 on: August 21, 2012, 03:35:50 am »
I'm going to throw in a curly one here.
Mind you I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in cases involving IP

There is a basic premise in all jurisdictons that there is an implied protection of IP. It does not matter whether you ahve an agreement or not.

In the OSHW world, i doubt that memebrs would have the resources nor the will to launcg legal action against perpetrators. Especially that these 'violations' occur in counties outside of the domicile of the IP owner.
It's really only big corporations that can afford to mount such legal actions.
Therefore the OSHW community need to respect the IP of other people, since the chnace of a leagal enforcement are almost zero.
But if someone doesn't want to play by the rules, written or not, who's going to stop them?

I think Dave's point is that it's morally wrong (to steal others ideas) , and I agree with him. Just that in this world there are some immoral people.
The OSHW system will break down if too much of this goes on.

Robert
« Last Edit: August 21, 2012, 03:38:14 am by kaindub »
 

Offline gregariz

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #33 on: August 21, 2012, 04:03:41 am »
westfw's comment "The whole: "This is a black box and we're not going to tell you what's in it or how to do anything with other than be a standard consumer" philosophy is relatively recent, and the "current" OSHW movement is perhaps a reaction to that philosophy."
I believe is the main driving force behind OSHW together with the fact that creating hardware is just getting more accessible to the masses.

Back when they used to put schematics in the back of a radio it was because electronics was actually worth the money to repair. Manufacturers didn't really have to worry so much about getting ripped off by a Chinese copy. If there was a copy, it was likely to cost a similar amount of money - and would require real tooling costs. A Chinese copy today is likely to cost 1/4 of the western manufactured product and in some cases less. Where OSHW is contributing to free knowledge transfer for some low cost commercial manufacturer I think is a bad thing but each to their own.
 

Offline amspire

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #34 on: August 21, 2012, 07:05:02 am »
I'm going to throw in a curly one here.
Mind you I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in cases involving IP

There is a basic premise in all jurisdictons that there is an implied protection of IP. It does not matter whether you ahve an agreement or not.
That is why open source software and hardware nowadays has to be licensed. Without a license specifying the permission of others to use your work, it is hard for others to know if they are legally entitled to use your work without the risk of being sued.

Something is very stupid in the world that we need to license work to make it freely available.
Quote

In the OSHW world, i doubt that memebrs would have the resources nor the will to launcg legal action against perpetrators. Especially that these 'violations' occur in counties outside of the domicile of the IP owner.
It's really only big corporations that can afford to mount such legal actions.
Therefore the OSHW community need to respect the IP of other people, since the chnace of a leagal enforcement are almost zero.
But if someone doesn't want to play by the rules, written or not, who's going to stop them?

I think Dave's point is that it's morally wrong (to steal others ideas) , and I agree with him. Just that in this world there are some immoral people.
The OSHW system will break down if too much of this goes on.

Robert
The more people start copying OSHW, the stronger it may become. Particularly if companies who want to build OSHW start to realize how much more successful they can be if they work with the designer, rather then in isolation. If two companies were selling a clone of an OSHW design and one of them is recommended  as a supplier on the project's home page, I know which company I would buy from.

Companies like IBM, Sun/Oracle, Google, Amazon and just about every builder of modems, routers, etc depend on Open Source software, and I am hoping that some big manufacturers will start to see the benefits of employing open source hardware of some description in their products. It is still possible to make great money from Open Source work, but you have to find the right business model.
 

Offline dolabra

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #35 on: August 22, 2012, 02:32:01 am »
OSH people are great.  I am always amazed when I see makers supporting clones of their work.  I don't only mean "moral" support, I mean spending their time to answer questions from people who have purchased clones!
 

Offline westfw

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #36 on: August 22, 2012, 07:45:59 am »
Quote
spending their time to answer questions from people who have purchased clones!
I spend time answering questions from people even though I've never sold anyone anything!
 

Offline whatchitfoool

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #37 on: August 25, 2012, 07:36:43 pm »
What specifically are you copyrighting? (seeing how its open source and all)
 I don't think its the platypus. :D




 

Offline Bored@Work

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #38 on: August 25, 2012, 08:02:17 pm »
What specifically are you copyrighting? (seeing how its open source and all)

I don't think you have understood open source licenses. The strong ones rely on the author/designer exercising his copyright, and granting others certain rights based on his copyright.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2012, 08:04:29 pm by Bored@Work »
I delete PMs unread. If you have something to say, say it in public.
For all else: Profile->[Modify Profile]Buddies/Ignore List->Edit Ignore List
 

Offline user325153

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Re: EEVblog #333 - Unwritten Rules of OSHW
« Reply #39 on: August 26, 2012, 01:05:12 am »
What specifically are you copyrighting? (seeing how its open source and all)
The copyright is indicating that you have received the product under a license. The specific license allows all sorts of stuff. This is important to force share alike where that applies. In MIT, BSD or apache software this naming thing is actually quite important since sometimes all you get is the honor by having yourself included in the Microsoft license (you can't claim they did not succeed) for example.
The creative commons license might be a problem enforcing back contributions. Because all you're claiming is actually back contributions if and only if the design is published (the actual schema) and only for the design (?)
In my opinion trademark and enforcing that is absolutely essential for marketing. Would dave sell a few million of his usupply, cheap ripoffs(indistinguisable) using your name would be a real problem. A clone would have to print the copyright but you have to also think of your users from a marketing perspective. If they can't distinguish your product by some name or logo you're really giving them a hard time supporting the good guys and in terms of the big public they would smear everything that has to do with the original.
 


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