[OH Updates] the solderpad hardware license

[Christopher Covington]

On Wed, 2012-03-28 at 07:45 +0100, Andrew Katz wrote:
> 
> Hi Andrew
> 
> 
> 
> On 27 Mar 2012, at 21:27, G. Andrew Stone wrote:
> 
> > Why use it?  If a new license was created for every type of work
> > envisioned, for example: mystery stories vs. sci fi vs. non-fiction,
> > we'd have a lot of distinction without any real difference.  If none
> > of the unique issues with open hardware are addressed in a license,
> > then we might as well use the "upstream" Apache, BSD, etc to license
> > the documents that describe OSHW.
> > 
> 
> 
>  It's specifically intended to address issues particular to open
> hardware that other licences do not, such as design rights and
> database right.
> 
> 
> Apache itself is a good place to start, which is why I started
> there :) . However, unless you are confident that your design does not
> contain any of these other rights, then you are licensing under an
> unclear licence. The Solderpad licence addresses these issues
> explicitly, and avoids a situation where you choose Apache or BSD for
> documents (and the hardware itself) which do not have these other
> rights, and another more explicit licence for circumstances where it
> does.

It appears to me that none of the changes downgrade the effectiveness of
the license for use with software. I also think that to the extent
possible, licensing should not discriminate against the form of a
derivative work. If somebody wanted to implement the Apache webserver in
Verilog, or write a C-language simulator of some hardware device,
licensing should only get in the way if that's what the original authors
really intended, and I suspect that such barriers are unintentional,
where present.

For these reasons I think that "upstreaming" should at least be
seriously discussed.

Whether or not inclusion of the hardware considerations in the official
Apache license is achieved, I think it would be beneficial to not label
the new license as hardware-only, but rather advertise it as what it
seems to be--an free/libre/open source (approval pending) license for
both hardware and software. For example, it could be renamed from the
Solderpad Hardware License to simply the Solderpad License.

Regards,
Christopher