Here's a proposed draft of my hardware licensing terms. Read everything
carefully before complaining.
Let the yelling begin. :)
OpenShader Open Hardware License (OSOHL)
(0) This "Work" is defined to be this document or source code, parts of
this document or source code, or derivative works of this document or
source code. Use of the Work, in whole or in part, must comply with
the licensing terms below.
(1) This Work is licensed as a proprietary ("Original") copyrighted work,
all rights belonging to Timothy Normand Miller. Timothy Normand Miller may
use this Work under those terms and has the right to publish, license, and
sell this Work and derivative works as he sees fit. To remove these
rights,
you must remove this clause. Under the Original licensing terms, third
parties may download, view, and redistribute this Work. Third parties are
NOT permitted to sell this Work or relicense it under any terms other than
those expressed in clauses (1) and (2).
(2) At your discretion, you have the right to REMOVE the Original copyright
in clause (1) and APPLY the GNU General Public License (GPL) as published
by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version. By performing this action, you are making an
explicit fork. This is the only circumstance where modification of this
license by a third party is permitted. Contributions to such a fork may
not be contributed back to Original version.
(3) Use of this Work without clause (1) forfeits the right to use any
trademarks owned by Timothy Normand Miller, Traversal Technology, the Open
Graphics Project, or related organizations. "OpenShader" is a trademark of
Timothy Normand Miller.
(4) Patches, modifications, changes, and extensions (collectively,
"Modifications") to this Work that are submitted to the Open Graphics
Project, the Open Graphics Mailing List, directly to Timothy Normand
Miller,
or to an agent thereof must be SIGNED by the author of said Modification
(including the words "signed off by" and the author's name), granting
Timothy Normand Miller copyright privileges under clause (1).
Unsigned Modifications will be ignored. Your inclusion of
the signature implies that you have read and agreed with this license
and have verified that you are in compliance with applicable law.
(5) Modifications committed directly to an officially recognized source
code repository are signed implicitly. Those who have write access to
such a repository and who commit Modifications to that repository grant
rights to Timothy Normand Miller under clause (1), by virtue of having
write access and choosing to submit Modifications.
(6) It is the responsibility of the submitter of a Modification to ensure
that they have the right to submit the Modification and that they have
all the necessary permissions (including without limitation, patents
and copyrights) from any other contributors or third parties.
(7) An implementation of this Work that is considered analogous to a
"binary distribution" is defined as any form that is not easily
readable by humans ("non-preferred"), which includes, but is not
limited to: Fixed-function IC (e.g. ASIC), fixed-function IC masks
or other fabrication intermediate step, variable-function IC (e.g.
FPGA), FPGA bitfile, compiled or translated simulation model.
(8) The submitter of a Modification assigns copyright of the Modification
to Timothy Normand Miller. Depending on your local laws, you may be able
to assign joint copyright to Timothy Normand Miller and yourself.
Alternatively, you may need to assign copyright exclusively to
Timothy Normand Miller. Assigning joint copyright to Timothy Normand Miller
yourself is preferable because it will allow you to make unrestricted use
of
your work in the future.
(9) The submitter of a Modification forfeits the right to any patents
covered by This Work and pledges to not enforce any patents covered by
This Work.
(10) At your discretion, you are encouraged to add comments to the
"Contributions" section of this Work, indicating the nature of your
Modification.
Frequently Asked Questions
*** May I sell or otherwise profit from a Work covered by the Original
license?
A: Yes, if you apply clause (2), removing the Original license. Then,
you may sell the Work under the terms of the GPL.
A: Yes, if you enter into a contract agreement where you share royalties
with the original licensor (Timothy Normand Miller).
*** If I contribute under the Original licensing terms, will my
contributions
be published?
A: All third-party contributions will be published under the Original
terms,
such that the GPL may be applied in its stead.
A: If you are a user under a royalty contract, permitted modifications will
be governed by the contract, and you are NOT REQUIRED to publish those
modifications.
*** When do the licensing terms NOT apply?
A: If you do not redistribute this Work, then you are not bound by its
licensing terms. For instance, if you were to Modify the Work for use in
academic experiments, publishing your scientific data does NOT require you
to also publish your Modifications. (Although sharing of Modifications is
always strongly encouraged.) If you share a Modified version of the Work
(under the Original license) within an ACADEMIC institution (e.g. a
university), this is NOT considered to be redistribution. If you
share a Modified version of the Work within a COMMERCIAL institution
(e.g. a chip manufacturer), then this IS considered to be redistribution.
*** What does the original licensor (Timothy Normand Miller) plan to do with
royalties earned from commercial licensing of OpenShader hardware designs?
A: Reinvest the proceeds back into the Free Software and Open Hardware
communities. A committee will be formed to decide where the money will be
invested. The original licensor will be permitted to use some of the
licensing revenue to pay for overhead, such as legal fees, commercial
business licenses, office space, other administrative fees, etc.
*** Why does the original licensor (Timothy Normand Miller) insist on full
legal rights to covered Works?
A: Frankly, I don't trust any other organization to manage this properly.
I am the custodian of this Work and have the moral responsibility to ensure
that the contributing community is treated fairly. The only way for me to
ensure this is to ensure that I have full legal control over covered Works.
I'm sure that many paranoids will be watching me carefully, looking for any
reason to complain. Do bear in mind that this project is very important to
me, and I would not do anything to abuse the FOSS community that places
their
trust in me.
*** Why do you require the Original license be explicitly swapped with the
GPL,
rather than employing a dual license?
A: There is a history of people not grasping the terms of the dual license.
There is no practical difference, only a philosophical one. The advantage
of
doing it this way is that there is no ambiguity about whether or not a given
outside contribution can be sold commercially. If someone contributes to a
GPL version, then it's not called OpenShader, and it's off limits to me. If
someone contributes to the Original version, they know that the GPL does
not
apply (but can if someone forks according to clause (2)).
*** What Works will this license apply to?
A: The above license is intended ONLY for hardware designs (e.g. Verilog
code)
that have revenue potential. If the OpenShader hardware design becomes
commercially viable, then there must be a mechanism by which revenue can be
earned and then reinvested in the FOSS community.
A: The license will NOT be applied to Works that are purely software.
This includes software drivers and the OpenShader GPU simulator. For those,
we will always use FOSS licenses. The simulator will be licensed under
pure GPL, and drivers will use the X11/MIT license.
*** Will the hardware design ever be considered to be a derivative work of
the simulator?
A: No. The simulator and hardware design will influence each other
heavily,
but being of different designs (albeit similar architectures), written in
different languages, they will only be considered "documentation" for each
other. This is an explicit declaration.
--
Timothy Normand Miller, PhD
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti>
Open Graphics Project
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