On 2006-11-24, Lourens Veen wrote: > On Friday 24 November 2006 22:26, Petter Urkedal wrote: > > > > The point I'm trying to make is that the manufacturer must identify > > the subset of the hardware, firmware, and drivers which they claim > > are open. Given that subset, it's either open or not, there is no > > middle way. The practical implication is that when marketed as OHF > > compliant, the ad can only list the subset of features which are > > implemented by FOSS software/firmware (or it could have a disclaimer > > next to the OHF logo which tells where to get more info). IANAL, but > > I guess the trademark would serve as means to enforce fair > > advertising, and enable us to use our definition of openness in doing > > so. > > That doesn't make sense to me. Why should a claim that the hardware is > open be influenced by what kind of software exists? I wouldn't mind if > someone sold open hardware with a proprietary driver, and put an OHF > logo on it. Just as long as they don't say that the driver is open > source or free software.
I'm considering the case which spawned this discussion, where there is significant added value provided by proprietary firmware and driver. By all means, we want access to the hardware; in the case of graphics I think that has been the wish for the last decade. The existence of proprietary drivers changes nothing, but we don't want the features of such drivers so be marketed under the OHF seal, at least without an appropriate disclaimer. (Imagine a ray-tracing card, listing all it's features, which upon closer inspection is something like a quad-Cell board with a VGA connector.) > To me, the OHF seal of approval should mean that the hardware is open, > meaning you get the design in editing format (HDL, XCF, Autocad, > whatever) and the usual rights along with it. There could be a second, > lesser "open standards compliant" seal of approval, which would > guarantee that Free/open firmware/drivers can be made. > > Whether any non-hardware parts of the product are open and/or open > standards compliant is up to others to decide. Ok, I see where you are going. This is a different answer to Hamie's 3rd bullet. We just want to ensure access to the hardware, maybe with the argument that any added value is an small problem to duplicate for FOSS compared to the infrastructure needed to produce the hardware. > So would you then require that the firmware, drivers, software and the > services as well would be "open source"? How do you even have an open > source service? No, again, just use the OHF seal representatively. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
