Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 3
Open Licensing—Advanced
Sharing
Abstract
In order to encourage sharing and bolster the intellectual commons, this chapter provides an introduc-
tion to open licensing. First, free and open-source software licenses are evaluated to gather lessons for
open-source hardware (OSHW) developers. Then, the current selection of OSHW licenses and the Open
Source Hardware Association's principles and definition are detailed. Although these licenses have un-
proven legal validity, they act as a social mechanism, which can assist scientific hardware users and de-
signers gain entrance into the open-source community and benefit from the associated innovation accel-
eration. After licensing rules are established, a review of OSHW best practices and etiquete is provided
in the context of the Golden Rule to help innovators integrate into the open-source community. Finally,
remaining intellectual property challenges are discussed and some conclusions are drawn about where
we are now and where we are going in the future legally to enable everyone to benefit from OSHW.
Keywords
Copyleft; Copyright; Creative commons; Free document license; Intellectual commons; Intellec-
tual monopoly; Intellectual property; Patents; Public domain
3.1 Introduction
The intellectual property (IP) system is in many ways a reaction to the fictional tragedy of the
commons [ 1 ]. The commons are a public space in which resources and ideas are accessible and
are available to all. In the so-called tragedy of the commons, these resources are exploited to
depletion as it is in everyone's best interest to use those resources as selfishly as possible. If one
does not use the resources of the commons, they become uncompetitive when those resources
are no longer available to them. Therefore, following the logic of selfishness, it is in everyone's
best interest to snatch up as much property from the commons as they can before everyone else
takes that property. If stakeholders in the commons try to work together, one of the greedier
stakeholders can just circumvent the rest of the stakeholders by using up all the resources of
the commons. Grazing land for catle is the classic example of the tragedy of the commons. If
there is a limited amount of grazing land for the cows and multiple catle farmers, each farmer
will attempt to maximize the land available for grazing as the farmer can then own and sup-
port more catle. If the farmer does not atempt to maximize grazing land for his/her catle, they
will be undernourished compared to the other catle whose farmers are maximizing their graz-
ing land. Eventually, this drive for maximization will lead to the depletion of the grazing land
leaving those farmers who had not maximized their grazing land at a disadvantage compared
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