OSHW licenses

[blueskull]

Hi,

I am designing an open source audiophile DAC as a hobby. Is there any licenses that permits improving and "responsible" commercialize, but can prevent those Shenzhen companies from simply copy and paste my design? I really want my design to end up in good hands, not a company with only money in mind.

If there is not, I have another idea that is to publish my HW design using CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license, while NOT PROVIDING SOURCE CODE for the PC driver/MCU firmware/FPGA bytecode. If you want to copy, then do it. But if you want to customize it, you need to know more, this prevents some audiophool companies from integrating my design into their products without eben knowing how it works.

For a real knowledgeable company, I don't think it takes long for them to write a simple ALSA/KS audio driver, an ARM9 DMA management firmware and a simple FPGA logic buffer, so they can make good products form my design.

[PeterFW]

Is there any licenses that permits improving and "responsible" commercialize, but can prevent those Shenzhen companies from simply copy and paste my design?

How would a licence, patent or anny other such thing prevent "them" from copying your design/code?

[donotdespisethesnake]

I am designing an open source audiophile DAC as a hobby. Is there any licenses that permits improving and "responsible" commercialize, but can prevent those Shenzhen companies from simply copy and paste my design? I really want my design to end up in good hands, not a company with only money in mind.

I see this desire a lot, and there are so many wrong assumptions in it.

If you don't want to let people use your design for any purpose, you do not want Open Source, full stop.

If you want to restrict use, you need a closed license. You also need a license that has a strong legal basis, otherwise it is completely pointless. You cannot copyright hardware designs, so none of the copyright based licenses are any use. You could get a patent on the hardware design, if it is novel and inventive.

Even if you have a legally sound license if it is commercial valuable it will still get ripped off. And not only by "dodgy" Chinese companies, even western companies rip off IP. So practically you will need to keep ideas as secret as possible, use NDAs etc, as well as have a war chest for legal fights.

But I really wonder, is anyone's hobby project worth trying to protect? Is it just dog in the manger? I published an Open Source hardware design, to my surprise it was quickly copied by a Chinese manufacturer. I don't get a cent from them, they have never contacted me. I am fine with that, it is what I wanted to happen.

If it is commercially valuable, set up a company and sell it. If not - publish it and let people do what they want with it. If you just want "look at how clever I am" self promotion, publish a project log somewhere without details.

tldr; If you publish as Open Source, you lose control. If you want to retain control, don't publish.

[Scrts]

If you're not bothered locking the license, then there are a number of solutions to generate license for particular device. E.g. each flash memory has unique ID. You can use that for license generation.

[codeboy2k]

You can also look at it this way: 

1) You can publish it open source, use an OSHW license, and someone will copy it, sell it, and you won't get a penny. 
2) you can publish it closed source, use a closed license, and put a link for them to contact you for licensing arrangements.  They will copy someone else's open source design, never contact you and you still won't get a penny.

The moral of the story: if you have something that you think it valuable, make it and sell it yourself.

If you want to be paid for your designs, go into the consulting business. There are companies that want to pay other people to design and build things for them.  It's a "pie in the sky" if you think you can do it by open source.

If your Audio DAC is something that others might also like to have, why not Kickstart it yourself, manufacture it and then after you've earned your share from it, open source it.  There are probably plenty of people who will want to support an external DAC project if it has something to offer that is far better than what's commercially available today.

[c4757p]

You can keep it to yourself and make a profit on it, or you can share it and enrich the hobby and educational community. Choose. Don't share it with strings attached. Screw licensing bullshit, let that stay the domain of lawyers. I just stick a little note in the project to the effect of "do whatever the hell you want with this, up to and including removing this notice and telling people you made it". If I'm sharing something, I refuse to make people try to read legalese and figure out what I'm letting them do.

[zapta]

You can keep it to yourself and make a profit on it, or you can share it and enrich the hobby and educational community. Choose. Don't share it with strings attached. Screw licensing bullshit, let that stay the domain of lawyers. I just stick a little note in the project to the effect of "do whatever the hell you want with this, up to and including removing this notice and telling people you made it". If I'm sharing something, I refuse to make people try to read legalese and figure out what I'm letting them do.

This ^

If you love your design set it free.

[SaabFAN]

Dallas produces a 1-Wire Serial Number-IC. Every Item has a unique 64bit number stored, which you can use to generate the license-key.

[c4757p]

Lots of these are available - also, many microcontrollers have a serial number accessible at a ROM address.

[robgambrill]

How about just trademarking the name?  Something like "Blueskull Audiophile DAC", and requiring unapproved implementations to call themselves "Blueskull compatable". You could still have your project be OSHW and retain some control via the name.

 Think back to Modems, The Hayes AT command set required a "Hayes Compatible" modem. This allowed other companies to add this feature without compromising Hayes reputation.

  It kept Hayes going for years (even with their much higher prices). Business types and others  who were not computer experts, routinely would read "Requires Hayes Compatible" and buy or order Hayes brand modems.

 Closing source on software on an OSHW project kind of makes me uncomfortable, but that is probably just me..

 If nothing else, the trademark idea gives you some free advertising and name recognition..

[jlmoon]

Dallas produces a 1-Wire Serial Number-IC. Every Item has a unique 64bit number stored, which you can use to generate the license-key.

You can also use those 1-wire interfaces to implement serial license / functionality code.  Sell the "unique to host" 1-wire device as the encrypted enabling license device.  This should slow copy-cons down a bit.  For a while anyway!

[zapta]

You can also use those 1-wire interfaces to implement serial license / functionality code.  Sell the "unique to host" 1-wire device as the encrypted enabling license device.  This should slow copy-cons down a bit.  For a while anyway!

Open source with copy protection?

It's like full throttle in neutral.

Copying is a good thing.

[JuKu]

You could use a license that restricts commercial use and implicate reasonable licensing terms on your web site. Thiefs will still stole it, respectful companies will talk to you. You can set the terms per company as you like.

[Mechanical Menace]

Anyway, I decided to ditch all sort of DRM and licensing crap on the hardware and driver, just CC-BY, and HOPE the others who used my design will attribute me.

You really do need to make some sort of decision on the license for the software. It's automatically copyrighted so you need to make it clear if people can run with it and do whatever they want, even claim it as their own work, if they can take it and do what they want but need to give attribution (a la the BSD license), or if they must make changes public (like the GPL), or something else.

Not making that clear could stop people you're happy to use your work from knowing if they can.

[c4757p]

That's what CC-BY is...

[charlespax]

I really want my design to end up in good hands, not a company with only money in mind.

I'm a New Yorker living in Shenzhen making open source hardware, releasing most of my work into the public domain. Don't worry about licensing. People here can copy anything; it doesn't matter if you release the files or not. There's places where I can send a device with a wad of cash and receive back a parts list, schematic, and PCB design. Two blocks from my apartment I can buy schematics for the iPhone 6. Everything is opensource.

The people copying things here aren't companies; they're just people trying to make the best lives they can for themselves and their family. The big faceless companies are busy making new things.

Just make awesome hardware you love. If people start copying it, you're a success. The worst outcome is obscurity.