Open-Source Hardware Makers Unite To Start Certifying Products (infoworld.com)

An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld on the new certifications from the Open Source Hardware Association: The goal of certification is to clearly identify open-source hardware separate from the mish-mash of other hardware products. The certification allows hardware designs to be replicated. For certification, OSHWA requires hardware creators to publish a bill-of-materials list, software, schematics, design files, and other documents required to make derivative products. Those requirements could apply to circuit boards, 3D printed cases, electronics, processors, and any other hardware that meets OSHWA's definition of open-source hardware...OSHWA will host a directory for all certified products, something that doesn't exist today because the community is so fragmented.
After signing a legally-binding agreement, hardware makers are allowed to use the Open Hardware mark, which one of their board members believes will help foster a stronger sense of community among hardware makers. "People want to be associated with open source."

Comments

Can't Enforce Copyright on Hardware

[Bruce Perens]

Open Hardware is a good thing to make, but we need to be aware of its limitations. Regardless of the license used, creating a device from the plans is not copyright infringement.

Let's make sure everyone understands that. You can manufacture an open hardware design, regardless of the license, and share nothing, and it is not a crime.

It is, however, potentially a copyright infringement if you publish the plans in violation of the license.

This is because of this text in copyright law. This is the US version but there are similar things in many nations.

17 CFR 102(b) (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

The reason for this is that functional things such as hardware are protected by patent rather than copyright.

We should also consider what would happen if Open Hardware licenses could be enforced using copyright. Suddenly, any published schematic in a book or online publication would be protected using copyright and the copyright enforced on hardware manufacturers, including all of those in books that exist today. Which would have a major chilling effect on the Open Hardware industry and hardware production in general. We do not want this to happen.

Thus, in general we should not use copyright-based licenses on hardware, lest the courts begin to consider this to be normal practice and create case law that supports it. Courts and legislators do this, it's how we got software patents and other nightmares of today. Let's not encourage them.