Thread: The challenges of releasing hardware

One of the goals of free software is that it can be accessed by everyone; but hardware has unavoidable costs for components and manufacturing. That's why Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation founder, said that getting Open Hardware wasn't as important as getting free software, since the hardware's copy and distribution process was more complicated.

Think about somebody in Italy who has made a program and decides to release it. Ten minutes later, somebody in Australia can download, compile and run that software; he or she even can contribute with improvements that the original author will enjoy next day. The only cost of this process is the Internet connection. If the same person in Italy designed an electronic circuit and released it, the only thing that our friend in Australia would be able to do in ten minutes is printing the schematic. Well, maybe he or. she could manufacture a copy if the components were easy to get and owned the necessary tools. Another alternative would be ordering it from a factory, but this is expensive since hardware production is economically viable when ordering more than 1,000 units. Therefore, those who want to release hardware should design using common, cheap and standard components. Alternatively, if the project has global potential, reach a manufacturer agreement for producing a big batch at a low price.

A practical example
The Arduino prototyping platform is a good example of all this. It can be programmed to read sensors, control motors and build interactive objects and artistic installations. Its compiling environment is multi-platform and free (as in freedom) and the only extra hardware needed for programming it is a serial/USB cable. This software can be downloaded from the Arduino website, which also contains Arduino schematics released under Creative Commons Attibution-ShareAlike.

The project has used many ingredients to achieve
a successful widely used project. For example, it contains a removable Atmega8 microcontroller which can be easily replaced if broken-without the need to buy a new Arduino board. Two years after its creation, you can see an expanding community of developers who support it, workshops all around the world, new plug-ins and modules like ArduinoXbee (ZigBee communications interface), Arduino BT (Arduino with Bluetooth connectivity), Arduino Mini or the recent Arduino GPS, and third party projects as SquidBee.

Can people use a Creative Commons license to release their hardware? Some projects do that, but it's probably not the best way. Creative Commons or GPL licenses only apply to works that can be copyrighted (for example theatre plays, pictures, films, musical works, etc.). Creative Common licenses do not apply to the idea presented in the file. The only way to protect an idea is to patent it. After getting a patent you can license it, but patents are time-consuming and expensive, and most individuals can't afford them. So, by using a CC license for releasing a schematic we are really releasing the drawing of the schematic, not the circuit that can be done with it.

There is still another question: copyright rights apply directly. This means that if you compose a song, your authorship is recognised automatically; however, the only way of getting rights over a utilitarian design or an invention is by a patent. So ... you all might have released something that theoretically is not yours! Now you may wonder, what would happen if someone else patented my design? Well, in Europe, if you
have published it, you have prevented it from being patented-you can't even patent it yourself!

The TAPR organisation has contributed to the Open Hardware developers community with an Open Hardware License [http://www.tapr.org/OHL].As
they say in their website, they "grant permission for anyone to use the OHL as the license for their hardware project, provided only that it is used in unaltered form. This license is based in GPL but unlike the GPL, the OHL is not primarily a copyright license. While copyright protects documentation from unauthorised copying, modification, and distribution, it has littl to do with your right to make, distribute, or use a product based on that documentation. For better or worse, patents playa significant role in those activities. Although it does not prohibit anyone from patenting inventions embodied in an Open Hardware design, and of course cannot prevent a third party from enforcing their patent rights, those who benefit from an OHL design may not bring lawsuits claiming that design infringes their patents or other intellectual property. This license takes into account aspects like manufacturing and distribution of products made with the documentation released, which are not considered in software licenses. The problem is that this license only affects the documentation related to the hardware, not to the products themselves (which is what happens with software and the GPL). However, the OHL is definitely a good start to build a more complete license.

Conclusion
This article describes the basic concepts behind understanding how to develop Open Hardware. Although a perfect model for releasing it is still not in place, there's an ever increasing community which build sOpen Hardware.

By: Alicia Asin Perez. Alicia is a computer engineer working for Libelium, a Spanish company which develops hardware for Wireless Sensor Distributed Networks. Libelium's latest project is SquidBee, an open hardware mote. Alicia's other IT interests are security and low powered computers. This summer Alicia got the Best Paper Award in Workshop on Computer Architecture Education (San Diego) for a paper about a current measuring platform she designedfor teaching.
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