Simple License Text i can copy to make a project "Open Science Hardware"

General
1

I don’t want to open a huge can of legal worms here, i don’t even really care about the airtight legality, but is there something akin to the Creative Commons chooser, where i can pick an option and just copy and paste some text to say “this project is open science hardware”

For example here’s some stuff i just made up for a project:

"The Mothbox project is an entirely open-source, open hardware, open science project. All aspects of its design are granted a CC0 License and/or CERN Open Hardware License where applicable.

Mothbox - Automated Field Moth Light Camera by Andrew Quitmeyer is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal "

1 Like
2

Hi @hikinghack!

If you are talking about this chooser, I’m pretty sure there’s no equivalent for hardware (or software, because it’s not the same as choosealicense.com).

For example here’s some stuff i just made up for a project:

IANAL, but if the design files are published under CC0, then everything copyrightable in it are released into the public domain (i.e. no copyright) to the extent that can be done in your jurisdiction. Since it’s hardware, you also need to think about the patentable aspects of your design. But if there’s no prior art, and since you have just published it, then it becomes prior art and is now unlikely patentable by anyone including yourself. And the more you spread this design, the stronger a piece of prior art it becomes.

So IMHO, if you apply CC0 to your designs that probably releases everything into the public domain (copyright-wise and patent-wise), but as you said it doesn’t have “airtight legality”.

and/or CERN Open Hardware License where applicable

OK, but there is just one CC0 whereas there are three CERN Open Hardware Licenses so you need to specify which one. I tend to go for CERN-OHL-S. More info here.

Once you pick one, just tweak the wording of your statement from “and/or CERN Open Hardware License where applicable” to “and/or CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 - Strongly Reciprocal”.

BTW, Google Drive is not only closed source, but also ephemeral and unreliable as a long-term place to publish stuff. Strongly suggest publishing the files elsewhere like the Internet Archive, Zenodo, or OSF!

Hope this helps!

1 Like
3

True that choosealicense.com isn’t the same as the CC chooser. But if you go to choosealicense.com

You can click this:
image

And it takes you to a page about non-software licenses. This has a section that @Javier and I added:
image

From here you can get to the text to a page for each of the three CERN OHL licenses. The page:

  • Gives you a button to copy the licence text
  • Explanations on how to apply the license
  • Little coloured bullets on the permissions and conditions

For CERN-OHL-S the page looks like this:

image
image1022×875 182 KB

1 Like
4

Thanks y’all!

And @hpy - i totally agree about the Google drive thing. That’s just a temporary repo we are using internally. It’s not actually ready to be shared yet, just preparing:)

1 Like