Re: Hardware licensing (fwd)

[Yann Guidon <whygee@f-cpu.org>]

hello,

thank you for the double mails but i'm also subscribed to
the hardlicense list ;-)

Patrick Maupin wrote:
> > Did Patrick subscribe here ?
> Yes, as of a couple of days ago.
so you see that i can answer to the mailing list only ;-)

> > i'm leaving uni soon. i'll very probably be hired by an EDA vendor.
> > whygee@f-cpu.org works.
> Congratulations and good luck!
the moment of luck is already behind. now i have to
not waste it.

> Pat
> 
> P.S.  I agree with your assessment that "OpenNDA" is probably not workable.
>       The problem is that (a few recent California court cases notwithstanding),
>       NDAs do not really protect information, they only allow the law to be
>       used as a club against people who either (a) acquired the information
>       illegally, or (b) acquired the information legally, but violated some
>       agreement on the use of the information.
> 
>       This means that a minor, a poor person, someone in a different country,
>       or any one of a number of categories of people who you cannot reasonably
>       punish, can "liberate" your information and republish it in such a fashion
>       that anybody else can use it.  Your information is now not any kind of
>       secret, not even an open one.  The only recourse you have to fall back
>       on is copyright law, e.g. people using it without your permission are
>       using copies they shouldn't have, and patent law (which is expensive).
not only expensive but useless in most cases.

>       So, while there are some very legitimate questions about how much
>       protection copyright law will afford an open hardware project, there
>       is no question that the value of copyright protection is independent
>       of any disclosure agreement -- disclosure will not negatively affect
>       the protection.  This is why I think (until we are convinced it is
>       a completely lost cause) we should proceed with pursuing a copyright
>       based license modeled on the GPL.

that's why i've subscribed here ;-)

have fun,
> Patrick Maupin
> 5216 Crooked Oak Cove
> Austin, Texas 78749
> 512 891 6037
WHYGEE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~