Licensing options for firmware

[Matthew Garrett]

On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 11:50 -0700, Scott Miller wrote:

> I realize that this probably means it won't qualify as true Open Source.
> But I'm in this to benefit the community, not a bunch of Japanese
> corporations.  And I'm sinking thousands of dollars of my own money into
> developing and manufacturing the hardware.  I face a lot more risk without
> some protection for my code, and that risk might make it more difficult to
> secure funding for the manufacturing.

It's possible to release your code under a license that is advantageous
to the open source community without being open source. However, there's
no way you can release code under an open source license without it
being possible for your competitors to use it in ways that may harm
you. 

If you want the former without the latter, then you'll have to accept
that your code isn't open source - however, if that's what you want then
that's what you should do. Open source isn't about forcing people to
release code under open source licenses, and if you feel that your
concerns are legitimate then you should pay attention to them.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org