[License-discuss] Questions Regarding Open Source Hardware Licenses

[Michael Bretti]

To The Open Source License Discussion Group,

I was recently referred to this mailing group by a member of the Open
Research Institute, who has been a fantastic help and resource regarding my
questions and concerns about open source approaches in general. As some
background, I am currently the only person (as far as I am aware)
developing and testing open source ion and plasma propulsion systems for
nanosatellites (like PocketQubes and Cubesats), which I do completely out
of home. I currently run Applied Ion Systems, which originally started as
purely hobby, sharing my projects on various social media, but has gained
support enough in the maker and space communities that I have transitioned
to an official business. I currently have 2 openly developed thrusters
onboard the AMSAT-Spain GENESIS PocketQubes scheduled for launch later this
year, that is a joint collaboration between them, myself, Fossa Systems,
and the Libre Space Foundation with more collaborations down the road to
further advance the relatively untouched field of open source satellite
hardware. I am actively promoting open development of electric propulsion
systems for satellites to radically lower the barrier of entry and cost for
them, working on a very small out-of-pocket budget with available resources
to the average maker vs. traditional multi-million dollar academic and
research company efforts, and taking on the field in a way that has never
been done before.

As I progress into more high performance and potentially innovative systems
however, I increasingly need to worry about protecting myself and my work
from competition, being open-source in a highly closed and competitive
field. From prior discussions, it sounds like I need to start to apply open
source hardware licenses (lots of people telling me I need to patent, but
there is no way I can remotely afford that route). However, there seems to
be little information about this, as well as disagreement between various
people I have spoken with on the subject. As such, I was hoping to get some
guidance on the subject, with the following questions below:

1. What are the main advantages/disadvantages of each of the OSH licenses
available? I know there are several like CERN OHL 1.2 and TAPR OHL, but I
don't know if there are other approved licenses, and which would be best to
apply for my application, or if there is one that is particularly favored
by the community.

2. Should a license be applied to each and every system worked on, or is
there some way to apply a blanket license (for example, apply one license
for everything that falls under Applied Ion Systems)? Once a license is in
place, is it permanent, or can it be changed?

3. How can a for-profit open source hardware entity stay competitive and
protect itself in the market? Do open source hardware licenses offer
necessary protections, or is there more that is needed? I already have
information that there is at least one competitor in Europe already looking
to possibly try and take and leverage my designs themselves. Considering
everyone else in the field has essentially millions of dollars in backing,
and I am working out of home with pocket change and small donations from
the community, in some sense it feels like I am giving away designs and
expertise to direct competitors while barely scraping by myself, and can't
be sustainable against mega-funded powerhouses. My key advantage over
everyone is that I can develop the tech faster and cheaper than anyone else
by orders of magnitude, and am completely transparent in my work publicly
and with the community, but at the end of the day I need to be sustainable.

4. How can open source innovation be protected? Especially in my case were
I am working on very high-tech systems in a highly competitive, and
normally very secretive and non-transparent field, how can I make sure that
I get credit, or protect myself from others patenting my designs, and
ultimately using them against me, or worst case, completely legally locking
me out of working on them myself?

5. Finally, is there a hard line that defines open source in regards to
hardware? Up until now I have released everything with 100% transparency,
including circuitry, BoMs, CAD, PCB design, test reports, R&D, etc.
However, depending who I talk to, there is disagreement about what it means
to be "officially" open source. Some of the more strict members of the
community I have talked to have said that until I apply licenses, I am not
actually open source. However, others consider my work open source since I
have openly released and shared everything for them, and actively engage
the community and provide info and support how others can do it themselves.
Is there a hard line between being open source, and is that gated purely by
licensing? If so, since I have not yet figured out licensing, does that
invalidate all the work I have done prior as open source? Until now, I have
thought that my work is open source, and it seems unusual that the
difference between being open source and not is a single license, despite
everything being openly available, and what I have provided so far would
not change other than applying such a license. However, I am not sure if
there is some official vetting process by the community to be considered
truly open source.

I still plan on forging ahead on this path and continuing to openly share
my developments, but there seems to be little information regarding open
source hardware licenses, how this can protect open source hardware
developers, as well as figuring out how to survive as the only open source
hardware developer in the electric space propulsion field.

I just want to thank you ahead of time for any suggestions or
recommendations you can provide, and greatly appreciate your time.


Sincerely,

Michael Bretti
Founder/Engineer
Applied Ion Systems <http://appliedionsystems.com/>
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