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What license(s) do you recommend, and/or not recommend, for open source hardware, and why? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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I'm uncertain if the GPLv3 ^[1]^, or something from Creative Commons ^[3]^, like the CC-BY-SA ^[2]^ license, would be appropriate for open source hardware. I've come across the CERN-OHL-S ^[4]^, which appears interesting, but I've never encountered it in the wild, so I'm wary of it's apparent obscurity.

References

  1. Type: Webpage. Title: "GNU General Public License". Publisher: "GNU Operating System". Accessed: 2025-09-04T21:29Z. URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html.
  2. Type: Webpage. Title: "Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International". Publisher: "Creative Commons". Accessed: 2025-09-04T21:30Z. URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.
  3. Type: Webpage. Title: "About CC Licenses". Publisher: "Creative Commons". Accessed: 2025-04-09T21:31Z. URI: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/.
  4. Type: Text. Title: "CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 - Strongly Reciprocal". Publisher: "CERN". Accessed: 2025-04-09T21:33Z. URI: https://gitlab.com/ohwr/project/cernohl/-/wikis/uploads/819d71bea3458f71fba6cf4fb0f2de6b/cern_ohl_s_v2.txt.
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[–] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I only do BSD, now.

I used to do GPL, and I still support free software and everyone's ability to modify and extend projects for new and better purposes.

When some South Koreans were jailed for upholding my license terms when they spotted their employer violating them, and the FSF did little and less to help them avoid jail - which happens sometimes in Korea - I knew the GPL was still a good idea but in practice it exposes people to risk.

I can't have that happen for my software again.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I presume that their employers just had terms that essentially gave the whole IP to the employer. And GPL is conflicting that, especially if they were producing the code using employers equipment, which essentially makes all the code to belong to employer. At the same time, GPL maintains the IP on the author of the code.

    Not a lawyer, though I heard that some far-eastern companies have copied the US policymaking, which allows full separation of IP from the author.

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