(This page is a draft and is not yet ready for distribution. Please chip in on the PLOTS mailing list or contact jeff@publiclaboratory.org if you're interested in getting this proposal through!)

Introduction

We're hoping to transition all of our hardware projects to the CERN Open Hardware License 1.1 (link, fulltext). To do this, we need consensus from those PLOTS community members who have contributed to hardware design, and ideally we need everyone who has contributed to license their contributions.

What this means

Why the CERN OHL?

Currently our designs are available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC-BY-SA, or just "Creative Commons Sharealike" for short). This is visible at the bottom of all PLOTS web pages, and was part of the user agreement when you signed up for the site.

CC-BY-SA is great for content, in that it protects users of the content from legal action by the original author, while protecting the author's right to be attributed and to reuse in turn any additions by later contributors. This is -- legally -- how we all get along and share work at PLOTS. However, hardware designs need additional protections for both author ('inventor') and "downstream" users -- specifically, protection against patents -- the risk that others, whether inside PLOTS or not, will attempt to patent your work and challenge our open approach to community technology development.

The CERN OHL (fulltext: ) is an agreement to allow downstream users to reuse, remix, adapt, redistribute, and change your designs, without fear of patent litigation or that you'll assert patent ownership over their work. For users of PLOTS tools, it means that they will be free to use the designs forever -- that nobody "upstream" can change their mind and decide not to allow reuse.

The CERN OHL is written specifically for hardware, and has been adopted by several notable open source hardware projects (link). We've had a (pro bono) intellectual property lawyer look over the license (since it is fairly new) and have his full support. Now, to make this work, PLOTS community researchers who've contributed to hardware projects in PLOTS will have to adopt the license, unanimously. So help get out the word!

What you can do

At the bottom of this page is a form where you can put your name and a list of works you've contributed to. Please circulate this to other PLOTS contributors, especially those who don't engage much on the website or mailing list.

Also, if you'd like your name to appear on the "Contributors" list, take the time to publish a research note and tag it with the project you've worked on. It can be a token note just listing some of your work. If you'd like help with that, contact web@publiclaboratory.org for our Web working group.

CERN OHL 1.1 Agreement