[ohf-licenses] What if copyright didn't apply to binary executables?

[luc marschall]

Le jeudi 04 septembre 2008 à 14:15 -0500, Terry Hancock a écrit :
snip
> There seems to be little question that most hardware products are NOT
> considered to be copyrighted derivatives of their designs (and I've
> heard some good arguments for why it should stay that way), but that's
> why a conventional "soft" copyleft doesn't do us much good (and I would
> argue that, since copyleft introduces some inconveniences of its own,
> that it should be not be used if it doesn't achieve its purpose).
Maybe, one should split the problem in two parts:
- in one hand the designs data
- in the other hand the hardware production
the designs can be under a strong copyleft but the deal changes when
they go in production and the hardware is distributed. In this case the
user could opt between:
-providing a public access to the designs (modified or not)
-providing the hardware specification

So, a hobbyist should provide the designs anyway, but a "manufacturer"
should opt. There's no personnal use indeed.
On the hardware production side, the trick is that a given design can be
a part of a larger design. In this case the license will have a viral
aspect by requiring the hardware specification as a whole; or one just
have an access to the concerned designs.

Luc
> 
> Cheers,
> Terry
>