[ohf-licenses] ohf-licenses Digest, Vol 4, Issue 2

[luc marschall]

Le vendredi 07 mars 2008 à 21:05 -0600, Terry Hancock a écrit :
> Okay, for starters, this IS a totally new concept, unrelated to the OHPL
> draft I posted, right? (I'm assuming so).
There's still a relation to your draft as written below
> > I'm still a little leary of these "atomic" terms
> > creating some sort of unintentional loophole,
> > or simply creating so much confusion on the part
> > of users that they don't understand and don't
> > use the license.
Not me, excepted for "external design" until I understand this name as:
a design which is external to something
quote

"Atomic Design 1 + Atomic Design 2" =is-a=> Design

"(Design as Atom) + (Another Design as Atom)" =is-a=> External Design
      ^------ Sibling Designs ---^
end quote
> 
> Hmm. It seemed very natural to me, because this is the way we normally
> abstract designs anyway. Electronics engineers do not waste time on what
> sort of packages the resistors they use are in when drawing a schematic
> (technically they do when designing a circuitboard, but it's a fairly
> trivial part of the design). You just go and look up standard parts in a
> catalog.
Good if the meaning of "atom" is a common pratice in engineering,
nonetheless, one uses also this word as in its physical meaning, so
instead of External Design, why not saying Molecular Design?

Moreover, as you say in you draft, atoms are raw material indeed, so,
something which doesn't have a design, more exactly its design doesn't
matter compared to its property; even more precisely, something which
can't potentially impair the understanding of a design.
So why speaking about "atomic designs" when the design isn't the point?
Like in microphysic, an atom or a particle doesn't have some properties,
these are the properties which "made" the atom or a particle. In a sense
"25Pf" do the capacitor, though you need a capacitor and not something
else with the same property.
Of course, it's a problem of limit, but why not sticks with only:
-atoms
-design as atom (black-boxed)
-molecular design (a design is by this way always molecular)
> 
> IOW, discrete electronic components are to electronic designs what words
> are to a writer -- they're beneath the creative threshold for the work.
> 
> OTOH, somebody could, in principle "create words". Then their "atoms"
> are individual letters and not words.
> 
> A similar situation applies to a mechanical engineer working with
> standard gears, screws, various engineering findings, and machine
> linkages between them. Those elements aren't really part of the design,
> they are simply supposed to do their job. So, e.g. it doesn't matter
> whether the gear is "Delrin" or "Nylon", as long as it can take the
> specified load.
> 
> And there are similar situations throughout engineering.
> 
> The only unintended consequence I can think of is when it's unclear
> whether a design element is an integral part of the design or an atomic
> element used in it. The atomic concept means we're "black-boxing" a part
> of the design at some level, and it's not always going to be clear where
> that level has to be.
> 
> This is more of an issue for large "sub-systems" (e.g. of a car or a
> spacecraft), where the divisions may be very ad hoc, than for
> well-defined domains like PCBs or RTL. Presumeably, though, if that's a
> problem, the author can simply push the boundary out to the "whole
> vehicle" and the atomic level down to the "circuit board" or "mechanical
> component". This is why it's good that licensors can define their own
> domains.
> 
> Likewise, we don't want to claim that every design that specs an open
> hardware integrated circuit must be open hardware (most people would
> probably regard that as "non-free" -- you ought to be able to use an
> "open hardware chip" any way you want to).
> 
> In fact, I suspect that a court would impose limits like this even on
> GPL-licensed works. The difference is that the OHPL is meant to
> *specify* to the court exactly where these lines should be drawn,
> instead of leaving it up to the court to figure it out.
> 
> One thing that bears remembering is that we don't actually include
> "atomic" elements in our *Designs* -- they are included in the
> *Products* as part of the manufacturing process. The distinction in the
> *Design* is that atomic elements are merely *specified*, not *designed*
> (we do not include the plans for a capacitor in a PCB design, we just
> say "a 25pF capacitor goes here, and this is what it's connected to" --
> we don't actually care what the capacitor is made of or what its
> internal geometry is, as long is it is "25pF" (and also within certain
> wattage and voltage ratings)).
> 
> Cheers,
> Terry
> 
>