Vinod Kulkarni
Mon, 25 Jun 2001 21:39:24 -0700
If I am not wrong, the reasoning for not handling out the hardware specs is a requirement from their license - that you have to sign with them saying that you have seen the license and abide by it - probably in writing. This could be because you can't technically put a copyright sign on a hardware design. In essence, they want to link the design specs to the license - the only way is for the recipient to declare that "I have seen the design, and agree that it is your copyright". So if someone uses the hardware design of subsystems in other, proprietary designs, they can at least establish the fact that the recipient had accepted the terms. In software, a simple copyright sign within the sources is sufficient. If you have a doubt, court can always allow others to inspect the sources, and the copyright violation (GPL in this case) would be sufficient. May be someone can clarify. The folks have shown ample evidence of their interest in GPL'ing most design/code. We can expect that there are some really deep issues! -Vinod