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

Mon Nov 3 07:58:05 UTC 2025

Hi Bruce

Thank you for your feedback, which I will address separately:

[In 3.1.2.2, When the OSD was created, we had source-code control systems, but they were not hosted online. These days an online git repository seems to be more than sufficient as a declaration of changes, and should be sufficient to fulfill a requirement to document changes. Requirement of an additional copyright notice is a good deal more oblique and not optimal.]

We completely agree. However, we only mention a copyright notice as an example of how to indicate that the Adapted Material has been changed, including how, when, and by whom.

[In 1.5: specification that the licensed material consists of specific file formats excluding software seems likely to shoot you in the foot eventually because of the ephemeral nature of file formats, And this is also so specific to your application that there is no use for other parties to adopt the license and thus less incentive for OSI to approve the license.]

The file formats mentioned in 1.5 are only examples of what types of “graphical files and documents” may be licensed subject to the proposed license texts. However, we do not believe that it is specific to our application as a multitude of companies operating in the ROS space, including our competitors, engage in the same type of activity as we do in terms of making graphical files and documents available to the ROS community/the public. In this regard, I note that we have been approached by such companies with a request to use our proprietary license agreement covering the same subject matter, which we are aiming to replace with the proposed open license.

[An Open Source license will inevitably be applied to software, perhaps even by your own folks who don't have good access to counsel. You also list things that run awry of 17 USC 102(b) in the US and similar law in most other nations. Schematics are not generally held to be copyrightable. I don't see that OSI has an incentive to assist in protecting that which is not legally protected.]

Under Danish law, for example, schematics and other technical drawings are subject to copyright protection. As a Danish company, we of course need to account for that vis-à-vis the users of the materials we would like to license to them. Further, to the extent the licensed material is not subject to copyright protection at all, there is no license to be granted as everyone is free to use it regardless. However, in practice, it can be hard for a user to determine whether material is subject to copyright protection, so they would at least have assurance that they are allowed to use the “licensed” material by way of this license.

[And then we get to the nature of graphics which can be used in simulation, but not manufacture. This seems to be that you intended another use restriction in contravention of the Fields of Endeavor clause - manufacturing certainly is one - but I haven't so far stumbled across the term that implements this.]

The license text does not contain any restrictions with regard to fields of endeavor, and it does not distinguish between virtual and physical use or the purpose of the use. In order to achieve the goal, you mention, we simply opted to only grant a copyright license to the licensed material, and not include, e.g., a patent license like many other open-source licenses also do not do.

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: Tuesday, October 28, 2025 21:17
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.

In 3.1.2.2, When the OSD was created, we had source-code control systems, but they were not hosted online. These days an online git repository seems to be more than sufficient as a declaration of changes, and should be sufficient to fulfill a requirement to document changes. Requirement of an additional copyright notice is a good deal more oblique and not optimal.

In 1.5: specification that the licensed material consists of specific file formats excluding software seems likely to shoot you in the foot eventually because of the ephemeral nature of file formats, And this is also so specific to your application that there is no use for other parties to adopt the license and thus less incentive for OSI to approve the license.
An Open Source license will inevitably be applied to software, perhaps even by your own folks who don't have good access to counsel. You also list things that run awry of 17 USC 102(b) in the US and similar law in most other nations. Schematics are not generally held to be copyrightable. I don't see that OSI has an incentive to assist in protecting that which is not legally protected.

And then we get to the nature of graphics which can be used in simulation, but not manufacture. This seems to be that you intended another use restriction in contravention of the Fields of Endeavor clause - manufacturing certainly is one - but I haven't so far stumbled across the term that implements this.

    Thanks

    Bruce

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 11:50 AM Morten Fruelund via License-discuss <license-discuss at lists.opensource.org<mailto:license-discuss at lists.opensource.org>> wrote:
I am representing Teradyne Robotics A/S, a division of Teradyne inc. (https://www.teradyne.com/), that provides robot arms (https://www.universal-robots.com/)  and autonomous mobile robots (https://mobile-industrial-robots.com/).

Teradyne Robotics A/S is proposing a new open-source license for graphics (TERO-GL-1.0), and I am reaching out to this forum to collect feedback on the proposed license before submitting the license for a formal review by the OSI.

The proposal can be found on this GitHub page: https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL [github.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!SFxa51mqWWe_2PxImrvO9wN0Nj1Jh-kTa4EIXA0jYGLPwG25WePTW5BAcSFvSY-35ZRARZPNgQunLDMC3QiQAnsZWoA$>,
    where the proposed license is provided as the license file (https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL/blob/main/LICENSE [github.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL/blob/main/LICENSE__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!SFxa51mqWWe_2PxImrvO9wN0Nj1Jh-kTa4EIXA0jYGLPwG25WePTW5BAcSFvSY-35ZRARZPNgQunLDMC3QiQQNaeO_I$>), and
the motivation is provided as the README file (https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL/blob/main/README.md [github.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/UniversalRobots/TERO-GL/blob/main/README.md__;!!GenOTVeOfQ!SFxa51mqWWe_2PxImrvO9wN0Nj1Jh-kTa4EIXA0jYGLPwG25WePTW5BAcSFvSY-35ZRARZPNgQunLDMC3QiQa3UvfOI$>).

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/>.

________________________________

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>

_______________________________________________
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!SFxa51mqWWe_2PxImrvO9wN0Nj1Jh-kTa4EIXA0jYGLPwG25WePTW5BAcSFvSY-35ZRARZPNgQunLDMC3QiQOfK-p78$> 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!SFxa51mqWWe_2PxImrvO9wN0Nj1Jh-kTa4EIXA0jYGLPwG25WePTW5BAcSFvSY-35ZRARZPNgQunLDMC3QiQvSdltbE$>

--
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/20251103/b73c6d03/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/20251103/b73c6d03/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- 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/20251103/b73c6d03/attachment-0003.png>