[License-discuss] Proposal of new new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0)

Sat Nov 1 07:25:00 UTC 2025

Hi Bruce

Sorry for the missing acknowledgment. We appreciate both your and Josh's feedback and are working on responses to your various comments and expect to provide this early next week.

Best Regards

Morten Fruelund
IPR Manager

Energivej 51
5260 Odense S
Denmark
Cell: +45 28 93 03 22
morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com<mailto:morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>

[A black and grey logo  Description automatically generated]

Please note that this message may contain confidential information. If you have received this message by mistake,
please inform the sender of the mistake, then delete the message from your system without making,
distributing or retaining any copies of it. Although we believe that the message and any attachments are free
from viruses and other errors that might affect the computer or IT system where it is received and read,
the recipient opens the message at his or her own risk. We assume no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the receipt or use of this message.

If Universal Robots A/S processes personal data relating to physical persons, such processing will meet the requirements of applicable data protection legislation.
Please see our Privacy Policy here<https://www.universal-robots.com/about-universal-robots/privacy-policy/>.

________________________________
From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 1, 2025 04:46
To: license-discuss at lists.opensource.org <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>
Cc: Morten Fruelund <morten.fruelund at teradyne-robotics.com>
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Proposal of new new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0)

CAUTION - EXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not open attachments or links unless you recognize the sender and the content is safe.

Hi Morten,

I think your proposed license is rooted in a misunderstanding of the OSD, including by your legal advisors - next time it might be a good idea to hire someone with more backing in Open Source. Where US attorneys are concerned I recommend Heather Meeker,  and can connect you if necessary. I consult, as do other people on this list. IMO the best path would be the one I last suggested - reduce the complexity of the images and give them away, after all someone could easily make a 3D mesh of an existing robot within fair use and publish it, one can do that almost instantly these days,.

Since I put a few hours into reviewing your texts, as probably did Josh as well, it would be nice to hear an acknowledgement of our comments and perhaps what path you think you will now pursue.

    Thanks

    Bruce

On Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 8:16 AM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com<mailto:bruce at perens.com>> wrote:
Agreed. But I couldn't actually find the text that implemented that requirement.

Bruce Perens K6BP

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 16:11 Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org<mailto:josh at berkus.org>> wrote:
Morten,

> I am representing Teradyne Robotics A/S, a division of Teradyne inc.
> (https://www.teradyne.com/ <https://www.teradyne.com/>), that provides
> robot arms (https://www.universal-robots.com/ <https://www.universal- [universal-]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.universal-__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCA7uhp2z4$>
> robots.com/ [robots.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://robots.com/__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCAgY3KRbE$>>) and autonomous mobile robots (https://mobile-industrial- [mobile-industrial-]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mobile-industrial-__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCA92aJVFg$>
> robots.com/ [robots.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://robots.com/__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCAgY3KRbE$> <https://mobile-industrial-robots.com/>).

While I haven't reviewed the text of the license, there seems to be a
core purpose of the license that's at odds with open source requirements:

 > The main goal was to find a license that would allow third parties to
use these models in simulation environments while not allowing them to
manufacture physical products based on them.

That's a clear violation of OSD6 ("no discrimination against fields of
endeavor"), as far as I can tell, and explains why you couldn't find an
existing open source license that suited your purpose.  This is very
similar to "no commercial use" licenses that are popular with a variety
of entities; those can be open-ish, but they are not open source.

It sounds like what you want is more of a "shared source" license, or
even an agreement, for your association.

--
Josh Berkus

_______________________________________________
The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org [opensource.org]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://opensource.org__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCADZ5PfR8$> email address.

License-discuss mailing list
License-discuss at lists.opensource.org<mailto:License-discuss at lists.opensource.org>
http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org [lists.opensource.org]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!Q7UnOvF_9syHEd4NjmQexM4RH7OC288Jq0eBZ7UVvFlJrTLc0Z4tRZT0P9ZGB15ZoujdD7eawyOtSLoISfCA75UpVsg$>

--
Bruce Perens K6BP
________________________________

Please note that this message may contain confidential information. If you have received this message by mistake, please inform the sender of the mistake, then delete the message from your system without making, distributing or retaining any copies of it. Although we believe that the message and any attachments are free from viruses and other errors that might affect the computer or IT system where it is received and read, the recipient opens the message at his or her own risk. We assume no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the receipt or use of this message. When we process personal data relating to physical persons, such processing will meet the requirements of applicable data protection legislation and will be in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<https://www.teradyne.com/privacy-statement>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20251101/37d43c0f/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Outlook-A black an.png
Type: image/png
Size: 17311 bytes
Desc: Outlook-A black an.png
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20251101/37d43c0f/attachment-0001.png>