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> The precedent for Open Source is quite clear: Patents cannot be used to impose onward conditions that the copyright licence doesn’t. Does this mean that Mong

> The precedent for Open Source is quite clear: Patents cannot be used to impose onward conditions that the copyright licence doesn’t. Does this mean that MongoDB and others who have changed their licenses to be "everyone but cloud providers can do this for free" is not able to do that because the work has been presumably licensed? I'm currently working on an externally modular keyboard with standardized modules. It relies on the open source Arduino IDE, Visual Studio Code (Open Source), and the electrical designing was entirely done in KiCAD, but the mechanical bits themselves were designed in Solidworks and Inventor. Is patenting my work okay? What parts? The individual parts themselves are nothing new (RS-485, microcontrollers, Cherry switches [patent expired], NeoPixels, and a ton of adapted example code). I like the idea of Open Source, but at the same time I don't want to get stuck maintaining the code forever without profiting from it (I would love to do it for free, but like the analogy of paid-for LiveCD's, I still need a truck to move the sand around in, and lunch would be nice. What do I do?

mikekchar 8y ago
I'll reply on the assumption you posted the above in good faith. The article is talking about patents, not copyright and it's important to distinguish between the two. I didn't read the article in detail, but basically it's saying that if you allow Alice to use a patent in a piece of software and you allow Alice to distribute that software to Bob, that you can't now come after Bob for using the patent in the piece of software -- because the patent has "exhausted". I'm not entirely sure this will hold up of Bob makes a derived work of the software, but I suppose it might. It's an interesting thought. Anyway, on to your questions, which seem to have little to do with the article: "Does this mean that MongoDB and others who have changed their licenses to be 'everyone but cloud providers can do this for free' is not able to do that because the work has been presumably licensed?" No. They can make any kind of copyright license they want. There is no exhaustion for copyright. Just because I grant Alice a license to the software doesn't mean that I have to allow Alice to give it to Bob. In fact, I can make a license that forbids Bob explicitly, but allows Cathy to get a copy. I can even write a license that disallows people who look like Bob (unless that is discrimitation in a protected category) from getting a licence from Alice. Incidentally, I could do that with a patent as well, but the situation they are talking about is Open Source licenses. Open Source licenses are, by definition, licences that do not allow you to restrict who Alice can distribute the software to. MongoDB people would like to redefine what Open Source means, but until they do, their license is not Open Source. Question 2: [I am building a hardware/software project that relies on Open Source software]. "Is patenting my work okay? What parts?" You can patent any parts of your project that you want. However, some of the software included in Arduino contains a patent licence. Your software may or may not use that software. Pay attention to the license that you use for your software. If you are using a license like the GPLV3, then you are granting a patent license with the software. So this means that if the software contains patented parts, you are granting a license to the downstream user for that patent. If you don't want to do that, then don't choose that license. If you are choosing that license because you it allows you to cheaply use software that other people have written, then too bad for you. You'll have to write that software yourself. That's the price of the software: take it or leave it. It's your choice. Now, with respect to the suggestion in the article: if you choose to write your software using an Open Source license that does not have a patent grant, will you end up essentially giving a patent grant due to patent exhaustion. Maybe. I'm not a lawyer, but it's an interesting possibility. Again, same advice: if you don't want to, then don't. But don't complain that your non-Open Source options are too expensive.
jononor 8y ago
Sell the hardware for profit, give away the design files under an open source license. Assembled ready-to-run hardware is a serious value add on top of an open-source hardware design. A strongly built brand should also be valuable in such a niche. So I'd look mostly towards trademarking of the brand as IP protection mechanism for such a project.
- gmueckl 8y ago
  In hardware, the design alone may be worth next to nothing. The ability to produce something at volume with a constant quality often depends on knowledge, experience, tooling or other resources that are not present in any design documentation. Sometimes, it is not even possible to replicate these things.
  - jononor 8y ago
    You are right that manufacturing is tricky. Supply chain management and Quality Assurance are complex topics that alone can be full-time jobs to stay on top of, and can take a lot of work to replicate for potential competitors. It is an area that is vastly underestimated by most Kickstarters. At least those that don't operate in a very similar space, and have already invested this time. But even then parts are often designed for a particular manufacturing process or supplier (though it is said that best practice is to always have multiple suppliers for any given part). However for the PCB part of electronics, this has become a lot simpler the last 5 years. There are now many excellent and very affordable manufacturers that will do between 10-1000 boards (assembled & tested), available by just registering an account online. But manufacturing of enclosures, cables/interconnects, final assembly is still a tedious, hands-on process for the buyer.
    - gmueckl 8y ago
      PCBs and CNC milled or 3d printed parts are a bit of an exception in that the processes and services are stadardized enough that replication is not that hard unless something really crazy is going. But everything that relies on more traditional mass production methods (injection molding, casting, ...) is much more dependent on the actual execution of the manufacturing process and the part designs will generally accomodate that, for example by avoiding certain geometries or incorporating ways to account for manufacturing tolerances during assembly. I am not an engineer myself, but I had to work with mechanical engineers occasionally and I learned that the amount of work that goes into making some seemingly simple parts manufacturable at scale and at cost can be surprising.
GoblinSlayer 8y ago
Isn't it a nature of invention that it's a non-trivial combination of fairly trivial parts? Patent the whole invention, not parts.

mikekchar 8y ago

I'll reply on the assumption you posted the above in good faith. The article is talking about patents, not copyright and it's important to distinguish between the two. I didn't read the article in detail, but basically it's saying that if you allow Alice to use a patent in a piece of software and you allow Alice to distribute that software to Bob, that you can't now come after Bob for using the patent in the piece of software -- because the patent has "exhausted". I'm not entirely sure this will hold up of Bob makes a derived work of the software, but I suppose it might. It's an interesting thought. Anyway, on to your questions, which seem to have little to do with the article: "Does this mean that MongoDB and others who have changed their licenses to be 'everyone but cloud providers can do this for free' is not able to do that because the work has been presumably licensed?" No. They can make any kind of copyright license they want. There is no exhaustion for copyright. Just because I grant Alice a license to the software doesn't mean that I have to allow Alice to give it to Bob. In fact, I can make a license that forbids Bob explicitly, but allows Cathy to get a copy. I can even write a license that disallows people who look like Bob (unless that is discrimitation in a protected category) from getting a licence from Alice. Incidentally, I could do that with a patent as well, but the situation they are talking about is Open Source licenses. Open Source licenses are, by definition, licences that do not allow you to restrict who Alice can distribute the software to. MongoDB people would like to redefine what Open Source means, but until they do, their license is not Open Source. Question 2: [I am building a hardware/software project that relies on Open Source software]. "Is patenting my work okay? What parts?" You can patent any parts of your project that you want. However, some of the software included in Arduino contains a patent licence. Your software may or may not use that software. Pay attention to the license that you use for your software. If you are using a license like the GPLV3, then you are granting a patent license with the software. So this means that if the software contains patented parts, you are granting a license to the downstream user for that patent. If you don't want to do that, then don't choose that license. If you are choosing that license because you it allows you to cheaply use software that other people have written, then too bad for you. You'll have to write that software yourself. That's the price of the software: take it or leave it. It's your choice. Now, with respect to the suggestion in the article: if you choose to write your software using an Open Source license that does not have a patent grant, will you end up essentially giving a patent grant due to patent exhaustion. Maybe. I'm not a lawyer, but it's an interesting possibility. Again, same advice: if you don't want to, then don't. But don't complain that your non-Open Source options are too expensive.

jononor 8y ago

Sell the hardware for profit, give away the design files under an open source license. Assembled ready-to-run hardware is a serious value add on top of an open-source hardware design. A strongly built brand should also be valuable in such a niche. So I'd look mostly towards trademarking of the brand as IP protection mechanism for such a project.

gmueckl 8y ago
In hardware, the design alone may be worth next to nothing. The ability to produce something at volume with a constant quality often depends on knowledge, experience, tooling or other resources that are not present in any design documentation. Sometimes, it is not even possible to replicate these things.
- jononor 8y ago
  You are right that manufacturing is tricky. Supply chain management and Quality Assurance are complex topics that alone can be full-time jobs to stay on top of, and can take a lot of work to replicate for potential competitors. It is an area that is vastly underestimated by most Kickstarters. At least those that don't operate in a very similar space, and have already invested this time. But even then parts are often designed for a particular manufacturing process or supplier (though it is said that best practice is to always have multiple suppliers for any given part). However for the PCB part of electronics, this has become a lot simpler the last 5 years. There are now many excellent and very affordable manufacturers that will do between 10-1000 boards (assembled & tested), available by just registering an account online. But manufacturing of enclosures, cables/interconnects, final assembly is still a tedious, hands-on process for the buyer.
  - gmueckl 8y ago
    PCBs and CNC milled or 3d printed parts are a bit of an exception in that the processes and services are stadardized enough that replication is not that hard unless something really crazy is going. But everything that relies on more traditional mass production methods (injection molding, casting, ...) is much more dependent on the actual execution of the manufacturing process and the part designs will generally accomodate that, for example by avoiding certain geometries or incorporating ways to account for manufacturing tolerances during assembly. I am not an engineer myself, but I had to work with mechanical engineers occasionally and I learned that the amount of work that goes into making some seemingly simple parts manufacturable at scale and at cost can be surprising.

GoblinSlayer 8y ago

Isn't it a nature of invention that it's a non-trivial combination of fairly trivial parts? Patent the whole invention, not parts.