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Protecting Open Source Hardware: Call for Papers
by jeremybennett on Aug 13, 2009 |
jeremybennett
Posts: 815 Joined: May 29, 2008 Last seen: Jun 13, 2019 |
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The Journal of Information Law and Technology (www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt) and the European Journal of Law and Technology is an open access publication, focussing on the legal aspects of IT. Next year they will be running a special issue addressing the subject of Open Source Hardware. The following is the call for papers. I'm sure subscribers to OpenCores and their legal advisers will be keen to contribute. Jeremy
-- Call for Papers
Journal of Information Law and Technology/ Protecting Open Source Hardware? Protection for software produced under the GPL is well known and shown to be successful, based upon copyright protection and licensing. It is not so obvious that the same model can be moved over to hardware, since historically engineers have been allowed to reverse engineer products at will, so long as they are not protected by patents etc. The heart of the problem, so far as opens source hardware goes, is that the open source philosophy relies on the key principle that you are free to use my work, but only if you subsequently share your derived work, so the benefit continues. It relies on a suitable legal framework to enforce this "contract". Current developments in hardware are moves away from the traditional ‘Von Neumann’ architecture to multi-core, parallel processing forms and also system-on-a-chip approaches. These are very complex and difficult to produce and this is where companies seek to make money. Protection is important since special purpose chips are now part of almost every device being manufactured and markets can be large. It is not clear how best protection for these can be enabled – earlier forms such as ‘mask protection’ are no longer so relevant when the whole process of design and manufacture is through special purpose languages. The question we are setting in this call for papers is: what is the best method to enforce the open source philosophy for hardware, to ensure that contributions based upon the work of others remain open for others to develop. One example of the attempt to produce relevant licensing is the TAPR Open Hardware License - www.tapr.org/OHL which has been discussed by the open access community. However, since ‘Open Source Hardware’ is relatively unexplored in terms of legal issues, articles will be important contributions to the legal debate. We are seeking papers which look into the relevant issues and which might help to move the open source model into this new arena. Topics could include:
These, of course, are the issues which lawyers looked at in terms of software in the 1980s. The developments in hardware (‘chip’) protection now mean that the same kinds of questions asked then, must be asked now, as the economics and manufacturing of chip technology moves into a new phase. Technical advice will be available to legal authors to ensure full understanding of these issues. An overview of current design and manufacturing contexts is attached. If you wish to contribute to the Special Edition, then please contact Philip Leith at p.leith@qub.ac.uk
OpenSourceTechnical.doc (32 kb)
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RE: Protecting Open Source Hardware: Call for Papers
by k9srb on Sep 15, 2009 |
k9srb
Posts: 1 Joined: Sep 11, 2009 Last seen: May 18, 2016 |
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If you're interested in this topic, you may find the following posting from the High-Performance Software Defined Radio project interesting.
Steve -------------------------------- ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List ***** Some of you know that we created the TAPR Open Hardware License (OHL) primarily at the request of the HPSDR developers. It was intended to foster the kind of community around open hardware development that exists in the free and open source software world. I was invited to write an article for the University of Dayton Law Review about the legal basis for open source hardware licensing, which is quite a bit more complicated than for software. That article has finally been published, and I have a link to it at: http://www.febo.com/law/Ackermann_Open_Source_Hardware_Article_2009.pdf To my knowledge, the OHL is the first general-purpose license for open source hardware, and this is the first published legal analysis of open source hardware licensing. I wanted to give lawyers some idea of what's involved in creating a circuit-board-based electronic design, and I devote several pages to explaining the process. As a result, this may be the only law review article ever to include a schematic diagram! If nothing else, it should be a good cure for insomnia... John _______________________________________________ HPSDR Discussion List To post msg: hpsdr@openhpsdr.org Subscription help: http://lists.openhpsdr.org/listinfo.cgi/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org HPSDR web page: http://openhpsdr.org Archives: http://lists.openhpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org/ |
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RE: Protecting Open Source Hardware: Call for Papers
by jeremybennett on Sep 15, 2009 |
jeremybennett
Posts: 815 Joined: May 29, 2008 Last seen: Jun 13, 2019 |
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Hi Steve, Thanks for pointing this out. It's a good paper, which sets the baseline from which others can build. I've been talking to John Ackermann for some time - he's done more for open hardware licensing than most. Hopefully he'll continue to contribute in this field. Best wishes, Jeremy
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RE: Protecting Open Source Hardware: Call for Papers
by greglondon on Nov 14, 2009 |
greglondon
Posts: 1 Joined: Nov 7, 2009 Last seen: Nov 14, 2009 |
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Probably not looking for papers any more, but I just saw your call for papers.
I wrote this paper last year. http://www.greglondon.com/libre/index.htm It describes the different subsets of copyright, patent, and related law as a kind of Venn Diagram. Then it maps out a number of different licenses and shows how they fit into that Venn Diagram. Along the way, I discuss a number of issues that are specific to giving hardware projects strong copyleft protection. |
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RE: Protecting Open Source Hardware: Call for Papers
by jeremybennett on Nov 16, 2009 |
jeremybennett
Posts: 815 Joined: May 29, 2008 Last seen: Jun 13, 2019 |
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Hi Greg, This is a fascinating paper. I'd like to forward the link to the editor of the Journal of Information Law and Technology (Philip Leith), for his consideration. He didn't have a date for his call for papers, so I don't know where he stands with the special issue. To an engineer, this is a much more accessible approach to the law. I'm still working through it in detail. Did you consider the GNU Affero license - this seems to bring GPL closer to Apple Open Source for web application? I'm not sure your distinction over views of anti-Tivoisation clauses is correct. Surely this is about the importance of the "freedom" aspect of open source - the user's ability to change the software, independent of the supplier. I agree completely with your analysis of the problem of open hardware licensing - a chip is not a derived work. You note we don't yet have generic FPGA systems in every house, but I wonder how long that will remain the case? Within products, software defined hardware is becoming more common (XMOS, Icera for example) - when will it become more generic. Has this paper been published elsewhere? How feasible would it be for you to write a new paper, focussing just on the Open Hardware issue? Thank you for a very interesting read. Best wishes, Jeremy
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