simputer license reply

[<graham@belegost.mit.edu>]

Hi all,

A while ago I said I'd mail to this list if I got any
reply from the Simputer (www.simputer.org) people to my query 
(which was IIRC very similar to Gregory Pomerantz') about their license.

I just got the following back (it's part of a longer interview
I'm writing up for the opencollector news pages now)

Graham
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Question:  The Simputer license requires users to ensure that 'no third
party can receive or read the specifications from you without having
first read and agreed to the terms of this SGPL'. Other groups
working on free hardware design licenses have suggested such things before
(basically, using trade secret law) but the counter argument has been
that it will not be possible to seek redress against the person who
receives the specifications in this situation, only against the
person (possibly unknown) who passed them on. Do you see the use of such
clauses (in addition to copyright law) as essential to protecting
free hardware designs? 



Answer: 
The problem we faced in coming up with a suitable protection model
for 
the Simputer is the fact that being essential a hardware specification, 
the elements sought to be protected were not strictly copyrightable. 
Consequently, protection mechanisms such as the copyleft principle used 
in the GNU GPL do not fully apply. It was therefore important that the 
Simputer GPL utilised a stronger mix of copyright and contract than was 
used by free software licenses. Ultimately, this is the trade-off. The 
Simputer GPL, in order to protect the unique intellectual property of 
the Simputer had to accommodate the shortcomings of trade secret law.

Having said that, we do not feel that the Simputer GPL is any less 
enforceable than other more traditional GPL's. For one, every person who 
uses the specification is deemed to have read and agreed to the SGPL. 
While we do make the transmitter of the information liable to disclose 
the specification along with the license, it would not be a open for a 
recipient to say that he/she is not bound by the terms of the SGPL 
merely because the version he/she received from an unnamed third party 
did not include the SGPL. The only exception to this liability is 
someone who, using clean room operating procedures, comes up with 
something similar to the Simputer - but that is a problem that all 
patent holders face as well and we have no special solution to suggest.

Finally, since the SGPL contains a mix of protections under copyright, 
patent trademark and trade secret law, we feel that when all these 
components and brought into play simultaneously the SGPL will achieve 
its goal of protecting the Simputer specifications appropriately.