Open Licensing—Advanced Sharing - Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs - page 38

3.3.1 TAPR Open Hardware License
An example of this is comes from the amateur radio community. The TAPR organization is an
international amateur radio organization that has developed the TAPR OHL. 13 The TAPR OHL
provides a framework for licenses for physical artifacts that is synonymous with the more
established treatment of open-source software [ 15 ] . Unfortunately, licensing for hardware is
complicated by the fact that the established legal concepts that are well suited for software
(such as copyright and copyleft) are not as easily applied to hardware products and the docu-
mentation used to create them, although as we will see below this approach is used on Thingi-
vers e 14 , an open repository of digital designs.
The TAPR OHL preamble explains how the license works and how to use it [ 15 ] :
“Open Hardware is a thing - a physical artifact, either electrical or mechanical - whose design in-
formation is available to, and usable by, the public in a way that allows anyone to make, modify,
distribute, and use that thing. In this preface, design information is called “documentation” and
things created from it are called “products.”
The TAPR Open Hardware License (“OHL”) agreement provides a legal framework for Open
Hardware projects. It may be used for any kind of product, be it a hammer or a computer mother-
board, and is TAPR's contribution to the community; anyone may use the OHL for their Open
Hardware project. You are free to copy and use this document provided only that you do not
change it.”
Similar to the GPL, the OHL is designed to guarantee your freedom to share and to
create. It forbids anyone who receives rights under the OHL to deny any other licensee those
same rights to copy, modify, and distribute documentation, and to make, use and distribute
products based on that documentation. The OHL is not a complete analogy to the GPL. Unlike
the GPL, the OHL is not primarily a copyright license. While copyright protects documenta-
tion from unauthorized copying, modiication, and distribution, it has litle to do with your
right to make, distribute, or use a product based on that documentation. For better or worse, 15
patents play a significant role in those activities. Although it does not prohibit anyone from
patenting inventions embodied in an open hardware design, and of course cannot prevent a
third party from enforcing their patent rights, those who benefit from an OHL design may
not bring lawsuits claiming that design infringes their patents or other IP. The OHL addresses
unique issues involved in the creation of tangible, physical objects and hardware, but does
not cover software, firmware, or code loaded into programmable devices. Thus, unnecessary
complexity ensues as a copyright/copyleft-oriented license such as the GPL is better suited for
these types of innovations. The reader will unquestionably see the looming legal mess of ob-
taining the appropriate licenses for a complex scientific tool made up of hardware, firmware,
and software.
In general, however, you can use the OHL (or an OHL design) if the following apply:
You may modify the documentation and make products based upon it.
You may use products for any legal purpose without limitation.
You may distribute unmodified documentation, but you must include the complete pack-
age as you received it.
You may distribute products you make to third parties if you either include the document-
ation on which the product is based or make it available without charge for at least 3 years
to anyone who requests it.