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Then the competitor couldn't just take the exact design and replicate it at a lower margin than the designer. Removing allowable commercial terms makes it signi

Then the competitor couldn't just take the exact design and replicate it at a lower margin than the designer. Removing allowable commercial terms makes it significantly less "open" though, to that extent that many would argue it isn't open at all, like the various "shared source" approaches commercial software uses. Another interesting approach would be something like the GPL, which I don't think is often used in hardware. Allow your competitors to use your design ... they just must contribute back improvements. Probably the incentives are wrong for this, but maybe not, it sorta seems like a bunch of the "no-name" chinese consumer goods operate like this. The produces are easy enough to reverse engineer that every just copies the basic idea and produces their own variants. This of course doesn't keep the inventor in an advantaged position, but at least keeps them competitive.

Chris2048 6y ago
You can argue anything you like, black is white, the sky isn't blue, corporate exceptions mean it isn't "open at all" - but it clearly is at least more open then other than totally closed designs. If open means total freedom, including selling on at a lower margin; then yes, people might do express that freedom and undercut you - I can't see any way around that by definition, but I also don't see it as a problem - what's value is lost exactly? I think what is a problem is that people can't use a subset of you design to make their own stuff. Maybe the solution to that is a common library of totally free design-pattern, but that still requires integration into a finished product? > Allow your competitors to use your design ... they just must contribute back improvements. won't this just lead to trivial improvements? perhaps a bug bounty, or similar, would be better? or even licensing the original design for either a set fee, or a %?
- jacobr1 6y ago
  Oh sure, I'm actually in favor of these kinds of licenses. I mean, one way to think of them are GPL for commercial competitors and Apache/Mit/lgpl for "private" use (where private includes commercial, but not direct sales of of the product, such as using a DB and forking it for some kind of customization, the saas service using the DB doesn't compete with the DB vendor). All all cases there is some version of "open-ness," even OSI defined openness.
- woofie11 6y ago
  The key difference is I'll contribute to open projects (including AGPL). I won't bother adding to someone else's IP moat. If you want an ecosystem, you need an ecosystem license. "Open" source has never worked for anyone that I know of, not for lack of trying.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    There are plenty video games with mod ecosystems, so not everyone feels that way. There are plenty open drivers for proprietry hardware too.

Chris2048 6y ago

You can argue anything you like, black is white, the sky isn't blue, corporate exceptions mean it isn't "open at all" - but it clearly is at least more open then other than totally closed designs. If open means total freedom, including selling on at a lower margin; then yes, people might do express that freedom and undercut you - I can't see any way around that by definition, but I also don't see it as a problem - what's value is lost exactly? I think what is a problem is that people can't use a subset of you design to make their own stuff. Maybe the solution to that is a common library of totally free design-pattern, but that still requires integration into a finished product? > Allow your competitors to use your design ... they just must contribute back improvements. won't this just lead to trivial improvements? perhaps a bug bounty, or similar, would be better? or even licensing the original design for either a set fee, or a %?

jacobr1 6y ago
Oh sure, I'm actually in favor of these kinds of licenses. I mean, one way to think of them are GPL for commercial competitors and Apache/Mit/lgpl for "private" use (where private includes commercial, but not direct sales of of the product, such as using a DB and forking it for some kind of customization, the saas service using the DB doesn't compete with the DB vendor). All all cases there is some version of "open-ness," even OSI defined openness.
woofie11 6y ago
The key difference is I'll contribute to open projects (including AGPL). I won't bother adding to someone else's IP moat. If you want an ecosystem, you need an ecosystem license. "Open" source has never worked for anyone that I know of, not for lack of trying.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  There are plenty video games with mod ecosystems, so not everyone feels that way. There are plenty open drivers for proprietry hardware too.