[ohf-licenses] Open Hardware Public License, First Draft

[Terry Hancock]

Hi all,

There wasn't much discussion of the notes I posted earlier, so I have
mostly just followed my own ideas in this draft. I've included it below
in plain text form (I also have a nicely formatted PDF, if anyone wants
me to send them a copy).

I'll make further comments in a follow-up post.

Cheers,
Terry


Here's the draft:


(Proposed)
Open Hardware Public License
Draft Version (pre-1.0) by Terry Hancock, 2008-3/6.

1 Legal Scope

1.1 Purpose

This is a free, open-source, hard-copyleft license for
Designs for material Products. While material Products
themselves generally require substantial effort and
expense to create, their Designs represent a particular
kind of software model or documentation, be it textual,
graphical, or higher-dimensional, which can be
represented in an easily-copied digital form. This
license is designed to ensure that users of Products
made from licensed Designs retain access to the Design
Data needed to use and modify such Products freely.

1.2 Use Cases

This license is intended specifically for licensing
digitally-encoded Designs which are used in the
development and manufacturing of material Products.

In addition to Designs being free-licensed themselves,
they have a special relationship to the material
Products which are created by using them, and this
license intends to ensure that such Products, though
outside the scope of copyright, nevertheless continue
to be openly documented for future designers to
continue to improve upon them, and for users to have
access to the internal workings of the devices they
use. This is the "hard-copyleft", as opposed to the
"soft-copyleft" on the Designs themselves.

As such, this license is inappropriate for purely
digital items, such as software, for which no such
material manifestations exist, and for which the
additional provisions of this license are undesirable.

This license is designed with functional Products in
mind which are valued primarily in utilitarian terms,
and so is probably not appropriate for items of
principally aesthetic value, even when a physical
manifestation exists, such as with sculpture.

1.3 Authority of this License

You are not required to accept this License in order to
receive or use an unmodified copy of the Design
(including manufacturing products from it). However,
nothing other than this License grants you permission
to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions
infringe copyright if you do not accept this License
(except for cases of "fair use" or "fair dealing" as
defined by statute). Therefore, by modifying a covered
work, regardless of whether you propagate or convey the
resulting work, you indicate your acceptance of this
License to do so.

1.4 Duration of this License

All rights granted under this License are granted for
the duration of copyright on the Design, and are
irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met.
This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or
other equivalent, as provided by copyright law.

1.5 Compliance Conflicts

If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court
order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the
conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from
the conditions of this License. If you cannot convey a
covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your
obligations under this License and any other pertinent
obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey
it at all. For example, if you agree to terms that
obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying
from those to whom you convey the Program, the only way
you could satisfy both those terms and this License
would be to refrain entirely from conveying the
Program.

2 Definition of Terms

2.1 Copyright Terminology

  Design The "Design" is any copyrightable work licensed
  under this License.

  You Each licensee is addressed as "you."

  Licensees "Licensees" and "recipients" may be
  individuals or organizations.

  Modify To "modify" a work means to copy from or adapt
  all or part of the work in a fashion requiring
  copyright permission, other than the making of a
  verbatim copy. The resulting work is called a
  Modified Design. A "covered work" means either the
  unmodified Design or a Modified Design based on the
  licensed Design.

  Contributor A "contributor" is a party who licenses
  under this License a work on which the Design is
  based. Such a work is called the party's "contribution."

  Contributor Version The version of the work which
  resulted from the Contributor's last contribution.

  Propagate To "propagate" a work means to do (or cause
  others to do) anything with it that requires
  permission under applicable copyright law, except
  executing it on a computer or making modifications
  that you do not share. Propagation includes copying,
  distribution (with or without modification), making
  available to the public, and in some countries other
  activities as well.

  Convey To "convey" a work means any kind of
  propagation that enables other parties to make or
  receive copies, excluding sublicensing. Mere
  interaction with a user through a computer network,
  with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.

  Essential Patent Claims A contributor's "essential
  patent claims" are all patent claims owned or
  controlled by the contributor, whether already
  acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be
  infringed by some manner, permitted by this License,
  of making, using, or selling its contributor version,
  but do not include claims that would be infringed
  only as a consequence of further modification of the
  contributor version. For purposes of this definition,
  "control" includes the right to grant patent
  sublicenses in a manner consistent with the
  requirements of this License.

2.2 Hierarchical Design Model Terms

This license models the design process as a series of
hierarchically-associated Design Domains. Within each
Domain, there are design Atoms which are combined in
some creative way to meet design Specifications
intended to satisfy design Requirements. From the
perspective of an engineer working in a given design
Domain, the Atoms are indeed "atomic" and are not
considered as designed objects, but as raw materials,
with a given specification of interfaces.

It is acknowledged, of course, that this is a matter of
perspective, because one designer's Atoms are another's
design Products. The division, however, is important to
understand for the purposes of confining the scope of
the licensed work, the nature of Design Source Data and
the limitations of the copyleft on the work.

Works which are referenced solely as Atoms in the
present Design are said to be Atomic Designs, and
therefore outside of its scope. Works which employ the
present Design as an Atom are said to be External
Designs and are also outside of its scope. Finally,
other works within the same Design Domain, but whose
only relationship to the Design are through its
specified interface in an External Design are described
as Sibling Designs and are also outside of the scope of
this license.

Thus, the scope of the license and its requirements is
confined to the Design Domain of the present work, as
determined explicitly by its author, or implicitly by
the type of Design Data provided.

  Design Source Data The licensed work, which consists of
  documents describing or specifying the manufacturing
  process in a format which is preferred for
  modification of the design.

  Design Generated Data Any data which is generated
  automatically from the Design Source Data for use in
  the development or manufacturing process.

  Design Data Any data falling into either the Design
  Source Data or Design Generated Data categories.

  Design The concept expressed in the Design Data.
  Also, the copyrighted work covered by this license,
  which is composed of Design Data.

  Product The material object which is created using
  the Design Data.

  Manufacturing The processes which are used to create
  a Product from the Design Data.

  Atom A Product which is used in Products based on the
  licensed Design, but whose internal design is not
  part of the licensed Design, nor necessary to
  understand the Design.

  Atomic Design A Design for an Atom in the present Design.

  External Design A Design which uses the Product of the
  current Design, but only as an Atom alongside other
  design Atoms.

  Sibling Design A Design which is in the same Design
  Domain as the present Design, but only used alongside
  it as another Atom in an External Design.

  Specification The description of an object as
  required to use it as a design Atom: a complete
  description of its interfaces and behaviors as needed
  to make a design using it work. A specification must
  be sufficiently complete that a skilled engineer
  familiar with the industry and design domain should
  be able to implement the design and verify that it
  will work as an interchangeable replacement.

  Requirements An informal description of the need the
  design is meant to fill. Requirements documents might
  not necessarily provide sufficient information to
  ensure that a competent engineer familiar with the
  design domain will produce an interchangeable replacement.

  Domain A design Domain is the level of abstraction in
  which the design is conceived and manipulated by the
  designer or represented in the Design Source Data.
  Within the domain, designs conceived of arrangements
  and connections of design Atoms to meet an overall
  design Specification.

  Industry Practice

Most engineering disciplines have existing abstraction
practices which should make it clear to practicing
engineers within those disciplines what the division of
designs should be. Whenever there is doubt arising from
imprecise or incomplete explicit definition within this
license or by the copyright owner in the license grant,
Industry Practice is intended to be taken into account
in determining the scope of the design Domain for the
licensed Design.

3 Design Domains

3.1 Choice of Design Domains

Choice of design domain determines the scope of this
license, including copyleft requirements as described
in section 6. When the Copyright Owner grants this
license, he or she determines the domain in one of
three ways:

1. By explicit selection of one of the domains
  described in section 3.2 (Definition of Named Design Domains).

2. By explicit definition of a new Domain, including:

  (a) A generic description of the appropriate forms of
    Design Source Data used within this domain,
    possibly including alternative forms,

  (b) An explicit definition of what Designs will be
    treated as Atomic Designs within the Design Domain,
    and

  (c) An explicit definition of what Designs will be
    treated as External Designs lying outside of the
    Design Domain.

3. Implicitly, by what Design Source Data are provided.
  Where such materials fit the descriptions provided in
  the named Design Domains provided in section 3.2 of
  this license, those definitions will be preferred. If
  more than one of the named Design Domains is
  consistent with the Design Source Data which is
  provided, then the narrowest named Design Domain
  shall be understood to apply (that is to say, the
  most specific). If the provided documents do not fit
  any of the named Domains provided in this license,
  then standard Industry Practice should be considered
  in determining the scope of the Design Domain (and
  therefore in determining what Designs are Atomic or
  External to the Design).

For any Design which lacks an explicit Design Domain,
any Contributor is encouraged to add an explicit
statement of Design Domain, which may broaden, but
never narrow the scope of the Design Domain of the
Design as interpreted by these rules.

3.2 Definition of Named Design Domains

The following domains are defined for the convenience
of licensors and licensees in choosing a design Domain
for the Design (The names in parentheses are short
forms that shall have the same meaning as the longer
name before them):

 Engineering Materials or Compositions (Materials):

Solid, liquid, or gaseous materials composed of more
basic chemical elements and compounds, either as
molecular materials or as mixtures, alloys, solutions,
crystals, composites, or other combinations of matter
into usable engineering materials. Note that this
Domain consists primarily of non-copyrightable facts
rather than copyrightable expressions. As such,
applicability of this Domain to licenses will be rare,
and it is expected mostly to be used to define Atomic Designs.

  Source: Chemical formula, specification of mixtures,
  solutions, or colloids. Description of preparation
  techniques, including the specification (but not
  design) of processing equipment.

  Atomic: Design of processing equipment, commonly
  available elements and compounds.

  External: Applications, machining, or preparation of
  parts made from the material.

 Electronic, Electromechanical, or Mechanical Components (Component):

Designs for single components intended to be used in
larger devices, such as discrete electronic components,
electromechanical devices, and mechanical assemblies.

  Source: Geometry, material selection, part
  manufacturing processes. Combination of parts and
  choice of joining technologies for assembly.
  Engineering tolerances for manufacturing processes
  and geometry of atomic design elements. Includes
  plans and etching process for semiconductor devices
  to be implemented in integrated circuit wafers.

  Atomic: Engineering materials, manufacturing tool designs.

  External: Assemblies and machines composed of the
  components. For electronic devices, circuit boards
  composed of discrete electronic components.

 Gate Logic:

Digital logic circuits defined in terms of gates and registers.

  Source: Selection and connection of logic gates and registers.

  Atomic: Design of gate and register devices in
  underlying technology.

  External: Blocks of Gate Logic "Cores" used to create
  whole integrated circuit designs.

 Block Logic:

Combinations of gate logic cores to create full
integrated circuits.

  Source: Selection and connection of block Cores into
  a device. Pinouts for resulting chips.

  Atomic: Internal gate logic design of Cores used in
  the design.

  External: Circuit boards using the chip.

 Complete Logic:

The union of Gate Logic Design and Block Logic Design
domains - whole chip design down to the logic gate level.

  Source: Selection and connection of logic gates and
  registers. Connection of resulting Cores into a
  complete IC device. Pinouts for resulting chips.

  Atomic: Design of gate and register devices in
  underlying technology.

  External: Circuit boards using the chip.

 Circuit Board or Printed Circuit Board (PCB):

The combination of discrete electronic and integrated
circuit devices into a modular board (usually, but not
always, a printed circuit board).

  Source: Selection, connection, and location of
  discrete electronic components and integrated circuit
  devices onto a modular board. Design of the
  connection traces or wires which interconnect the
  devices on the board.

  Atomic: Internal design of the discrete components
  and integrated circuits used in the design.

  External: Design of systems utilizing more than one
  circuit board, perhaps interconnected through a card
  cage, interconnecting cables, or other bus mechanism.

This list of Design Domains is by no means meant to be
exhaustive, and you always have the option of writing
your own explicit definition of the Design Domain for
your Design. However, if you find a Design Domain
definition which you think should be included in this
license for the convenience of licensors, please
contact the Open Hardware Foundation
(http://www.openhardwarefoundation.com) to propose a
new Design Domain to be included in future versions of
this license.

4 Design Data

We recognize FIVE classes of Design Data which are
treated differently according to this License:

1. "Requirements" documents are informal descriptions of
  needs a design is meant to fulfill.

2. "Specifications" are formal documentation of the
  interfaces and behaviors a design must fulfill in
  order to be used interchangeably in External Designs.

3. "Design Source Data" documents are detailed
  descriptions (usually but not necessarily expressed
  in a formal, machine-readable format) of the choice
  and specification of design Atoms, arrangement and
  relationships between design Atoms, and the
  manufacturing processes required to achieve these
  relationships in the attempt to provide a given
  specification to External Designs. Design Source Data
  are in a format which is generated directly from
  human-interactive processes, including text editing
  tools, raster or vector graphics, Computer-Aided
  Drafting, and/or Computer-Aided Manufacturing tools.
  Thus, Design Source Data should be interpreted as a
  suitable form of representation for making
  modifications to the Design.

4. "Design Generated Data" documents are derived by
  software tools, with minimal creative intervention,
  from Design Source Data (including, but not limited
  to, compilers, synthesizers, automated
  place-and-route tools, etc).

5. "Usage Documentation" is documentation which is
  intended to be used along with the Product
  manufactured from the Design.

Note that this License cannot provide provide
protection for the ideas expressed in a requirements
document (because factual information lies outside of
the scope of copyright), but only for a particular
expression of those ideas.

Requirements documents are not required to be published
with Design Source Data because they are not essential
to modifying or using the Design.

Design Specifications are required only in so much as
they are needed to specify and select design Atoms for
use in the design.

Design Source Data is always required to be included in
Design Data, in so far as it exists. Design Source Data
which is created to meet a set of Design Requirements
or Design Specifications is an original work which is
NOT to be considered a derivative or adaptation of the
Design Requirements or Design Specifications that it
meets (This is because the only information retained
from requirements or specifications is factual in
nature, not expressive. Thus, the final design copies
only non-copyrightable information from Specifications
or Requirements documents).

Design Generated Data are optional for inclusion in the
Design Documents if they can be generated with minimal
intervention from the recipient (even if the software
tools needed to generate them from the Design Source
Data are not freely available).

Usage Documentation is encouraged, but is not essential
for inclusion with the Design Documents if it is not
necessary to manufacture Products from the Design.

5 Permissions & Manufacturing

Provided that you comply with the provisions of section
6 (Copyleft Requirements), you may use the Design to:

1. Manufacture Products based on the Design.

2. Contract third parties to manufacture Products based
  on the Design.

3. Modify the Design.

4. Propagate the Modified Design to others, with or
  without fee.

5. Manufacture Products from the Modified Design.

6. Contract third parties to manufacture Products from
  the Modified Design.

7. Distribute Products Manufactured from the Modified
  Design, with or without fee.

6 Copyleft Requirements

6.1 When Does Copyleft Apply?

You are responsible for fulfilling copyleft (see 6.3)
if any of the following conditions applies:

1. You Propagate any part of the Design needed for
  manufacturing to another party, including Design
  Generated Data.

2. You Manufacture or contract manufacturing for
  Products based on the Design or on a Modified Design.

Otherwise, you DO NOT need to fulfill copyleft,
including the following cases:

1. You modify the Design, but neither distribute the
  result nor manufacture Products based on it.

2. You copy trivial or purely functional aspects of the
  Design that are not covered by copyright, or you use
  information you learned by studying the design to
  create a completely new design (This right is
  normally granted to you by "fair use" or "fair dealing"
  statutes -- however, should your jurisdiction not
  honor such uses for all copyrighted works, this
  license shall grant that right for this Design work).

6.2 Definition of Design Source Data: What You Must
  Include

The scope of the materials which must be included in
the Design Source Data depends on the design Domain of
the work, as determined by the "Choice of Design Domain"
in section 3.1: if the copyright owner has defined the
nature of the Design Domain, you must follow that;
failing that, if he or she has specified one of the
domains in section 3.2, you must follow that choice;
and failing that, you must determine the scope based on
the type of materials included in the work when you
received it.

6.3 Fulfilling Copyleft

Assuming that copyleft is required (under subsection
6.1) and you have determined what material must be
published due to copyleft (under subsections 6.2 and
3.1), you have FOUR choices of how to make the Design
Source Data available:

1. You may submit the Design Source Data to an Open
  Hardware Foundation approved Design Registry on the
  Internet. If you choose this method, you must include
  with each Product distributed, the Design Registry
  and Registry Identification Number for the Design,
  either in accompanying documentation or via a label
  affixed to or direct-printing onto the Product.

2. You may package the Design Source Data with each
  separately packaged unit of Products distributed,
  stored in a general purpose digital medium which can
  be viewed by the recipient.

3. You may include complete Design Source Data in
  hardcopy form along with each separately packaged
  unit of Products distributed.

4. You may include a written promise to deliver Design
  Source Data, good for five years, for no more than
  the reasonable cost for duplication, postage, and
  handling. You also warrant that you will fulfill such
  requests for Design Source Data, regardless of any
  changes in your production status, ownership, or
  financial solvency. However, at your option, you may,
  at any time during the fulfillment period, release
  the data to an approved Design Registry, as described
  in option 1, releasing you from this obligation.

Finally, please note that you need not publish the
Design Source Data according to option 1 if it has
already been done for you. In other words, if you
manufacture Products from unchanged Design Source Data
that already exists in an approved Design Registry,
then you have no obligation to re-publish duplicate
information. However, you do have an obligation to
publish by one of the approved means (including any of
the options 1-4 above) if the Design Source Data is not
already available in a Design Registry, even if you
have not modified it.

6.4 No Obfuscations or Technical Protection Measures

You may not obfuscate Design Data to reduce
readability, nor impose any effective technological
measures on the Design Data with the intent or effect
of restricting the ability of a recipient to exercise
their rights under this License.

Additionally, when you convey a covered Design, you
waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of
technological measures to the extent such circumvention
is necessary to exercise rights under this License with
respect to the covered Design, and you disclaim any
intention to limit operation or modification of the
Design, or Products manufactured from the Design, as a
means of enforcing, against Design or Product users,
your or third parties' legal rights to forbid
circumvention of technological measures.

7 Patents

Each Contributor grants to you, every other Licensee,
and every possessor or user of Products manufactured
from the Design a perpetual, worldwide, and
royalty-free immunity from suit under any essential
patent claims which he or she controls to the extent
necessary to propagate the Contributor's Version of the
Design Data or make, have made, possess, use, or
distribute Products made using it.

If you make or have Products made, or propagate Design
Data that you have modified, you grant every
Contributor, every other Licensee, and every possessor
or user of Products manufactured from the Design a
perpetual, worldwide, and royalty-free immunity from
suit under any essential patent claims which you
control to the extent necessary to make, have made,
possess, use, and distribute Products or to propagate
Design Data.

To avoid doubt, conveying Design Data to a third party
for the sole purpose of having Products made on your
behalf does not cause that third party to grant the
immunity described in the preceding paragraph.

These grants of immunity are a material part of this
License. If any court judgment or legal agreement
prevents you from granting the immunity from suit
required by this Section, your rights under this
License will terminate and you may no longer use, copy,
modify, convey, or propagate the Design Data, nor make,
have made, or distribute Products manufactured from the Design.

Nothing in this License shall be construed as excluding
or limiting any implied license or other defenses to
infringement that may otherwise be available to you
under applicable patent law.

8 Disclaimers

8.1 Manufacturing Regulations are Your Responsibility

The existence of this Design does not imply the
legality of the Design or the manufactured material
Product under any legal jurisdiction. It is the
manufacturer's responsibility to determine if the
Product to be manufactured is illegal or regulated in
any way or if trade restrictions exist on selling or
exporting the Product.

8.2 No Warranties

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE DESIGN, TO THE EXTENT
PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE
STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER
PARTIES PROVIDE THE DESIGN "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY, PERFORMANCE,
LEGALITY, AND SAFETY OF THE DESIGN OR PRODUCTS MADE
FROM THE DESIGN IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE DESIGN PROVE
DEFECTIVE OR HARMFUL, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL
NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

UNLESS OTHERWISE PROVIDED IN WRITING, THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE NO ASSURANCE OF
SAFETY OF ANY KIND. YOU ASSUME ALL RISKS AND
LIABILITIES ASSOCIATED WITH MANUFACTURING OR USING
PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED FROM THE DESIGN, INCLUDING
LIABILITIES FOR INJURY OR DEATH.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED
TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER
PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE DESIGN AS
PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR
INABILITY TO USE THE DESIGN OR PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED
FROM IT, EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of
liability provided above cannot be given local legal
effect according to their terms, reviewing courts shall
apply local law that most closely approximates an
absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection
with the Design, unless a warranty or assumption of
liability accompanies a copy of the Design in return
for a fee.





-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com