For Approval: Open Source Hardware License

[Russ Nelson]

Dr. David Alan Gilbert writes:
 > The difficulties I see are to do with requirements to do with the 
 > ability of the end user to replace copies of the code or regenerate it
 > and also to do with the use of open source hardware descriptions in
 > projects with commercial code; Some programmable hardware is
 > one-time-programmable and it costs more to get reporgrammable stuff -
 >  would you want to force a vendor to make a more expensive system?

I don't think anybody is suggesting that anybody should be forced to
do anything.  This is more a matter of the hardware maker making
claims about their own hardware.

 > But there again the same is probably true for software - does a
 > vendor have to use flash rather than a ROM to hold open source derived
 > software to make it easily changeable?  Does he have to provide
 > and document the pinouts on the board to reprogram a device?

Well, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.  Everybody accepts that
software drivers can be open source even if the hardware documentation
isn't available.  But what does an "Open Source Hardware License" say
about the hardware?  That all the details of the hardware are
documented even if not everything is used?  What if the hardware has
features that aren't implemented because there is a bug in the
hardware?

 > The possibility of damaging a system from downloading modified
 > firmware to a programmable device is probably significantly higher
 > than that for software.

That's the theory behind the winmodem hardware makers' reluctance to
describe how their hardware works.  Same thing for wireless (wifi)
hardware -- different countries impose different rules on the use of
wireless -- but what if the driver is open source and people can
change things willy-nilly?

 > There may also be difficulties in deciding what tools you need to
 > turn your hardware description into something useable - often it
 > is still a colleciton of commercial tools held together with
 > scripts and magic for the larger designs.

I think that falls into the "fully documented hardware" bin.

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