[Legal] Convening the license committee - call for participation

[Bruce Perens]

On 11/16/2011 05:09 PM, phillip torrone wrote:
> 1. then why fork open source hardware to open source hardware vs. open hardware? please demonstrate you can avoid schisms.

The schism between FSF and the Open Source Initiative was never over any 
questions of policy. It was mostly that one person thought that RMS 
would be scary to business people, and decided to handle the problem by 
publicly deprecating him. IMO this is was a horrible mistake. RMS is 
scary and awkward but necessary too, and deprecating him was the wrong 
approach.

The group behind the Open Hardware Summit (I guess now "Open Source 
Hardware Summit") isn't really interested in having the degree of rigor 
about the legal strategy of Open Hardware that I am proposing. I think 
the work is important and I will make sure it gets done.

To elucidate on my personal reason for involvement in this project: I 
think I understand, in retrospect, that there are some things we got 
wrong with Open Source. I take responsibility for them. I want to make 
sure the same things don't go wrong with Open Hardware, and that the 
community doesn't pay the same costs unnecessarily.
> 2. you really can't find *any* way to work within the current community that's obviously doing really well?
It's not like they've been banned from the mailing list or anything.

Who would you put on the committee? I appreciate that you aren't 
personally volunteering, its topic not being your specialty.

> are we really heading to a place where you'll refuse to say arduino is open hardware? or break boards from sparkfun isn't open hardware?

Please keep in mind that the Open Hardware Summit group did approve the 
Open Hardware Definition that I've asked the committee to use. We should 
both be able to agree on what complies with that definition and what 
does not, just by going through it line by line and looking at the 
evidence. Some things from our best friends may not comply - yet. There 
are some Arduino-like boards today that don't comply with the 
definition, and some that do, and some breakout boards that do, and don't.

Non-compliance is an opportunity for evangelism. We draw a line in the 
sand for the purposes of evangelizing that people should share certain 
things. We give it a name so that we can point out when that sharing is, 
and is not, happening. We hope that by doing so, we will encourage more 
to share as we believe they should. My experience is that they do.
> when tough questions were asked on the summit list bruce, you quit.
I asked for consensus on the Open Hardware Summit list on the subject of 
whether I should carry out this project under my own banner. The 
consensus was for that. I am not going to respond to the rest of that 
paragraph because it's too ad-hominem.
> 5. isn't there at least one person you could suggest besides yourself?
Yes, there is. And I will take it up with the committee and that person. 
But I am not sure that person wants to take that much on, and it /would/ 
be asking a lot. My participation in this comes at a real financial, 
time, and emotional cost to me. I am loath of asking too much of others.

     Thanks

     Bruce

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