Open source hardware is not the same as open source software. There are no bad copies from open source software projects. The nc license is one of the ways to protect against bad inferior copies. My board will probably have a nc license. Reliable manufacturers can get a commercial license.
I do not think some organization can claim the rights to the name “open source” and make rules for it.
Some claim also that open source hardware need to be made with open source tools (for some strange reason eagle is acceptable. Other better commercial tools are not)
@Camerin_hahn I think the answer is yes to several if not all of your questions, certainly enough for your aggressive position to be a tenous one. @bob_cousins designed the ramps-fd.
@Tim_Rastall Fair enough. I will back off. I apologize.
@bob_cousins To be fair the Printrboard is under CC ShareAlike 3.0. And it is approved an approved license under OSHWA.
The printrbots them selves may not be under the same license, So the printrboards are truly opensource, (that is where the stamp is) the bot may not be.
Open source fanatics that want to enforce open source rules on others are doing more dammige to the open source community then the nc licenses.
If you hear all day that nc is not really open source, why release the sources? Be happy people share ideas and sources. Do not attack them for using nc.
If open source becomes a religion it is as damaging as patents.
I want to share code, ideas and designs. But I hate when someone attacks me because they have an other idea about open source.
@erik_vdzalm I do like the OSHWA statement you can opensource some sub piece ie the printrboard, then close source the printer (ie the bot itself), and anyone else could do the same thing. if you use the proper license.
" Other copyleft licenses have been specifically designed for hardware; they include the CERN Open Hardware License (OHL) and the TAPR Open Hardware License (OHL). Permissive licenses are those which allow for proprietary (closed) derivatives; they include the FreeBSD license, the MIT license, and the Creative Commons Attribution license. Licenses that prevent commercial use are not compatible with open-source; see this question for more."
(i am reading up a bit more, but i agree that there is allot of grey area and the HW community is still growing and learning)
Phil from Adafruit recommend the CC attribution share and share alike, so I’m going with that. CC is super easy to apply and very friendly. I like it.
@erik_vdzalm An NC license is not legally enforcable and those that do clone on mass scale aren’t necessarily concerned with that nor are those that buy it. I’d agree with Bob that many here do not understand what the term open source means or that licenses like an NC (or for that matter an OSHWA license) are not able to protect against copies. While there can be debate on the merits, I use the definition from the OSHWA. Others seem to have co-opted the term to their own interpretation. There are many of the same arugments and debates we had during the first Internet boom and the birth of OSS way back when.
Heated beds are such a problem, I don’t know of any common board that has well rated connectors. Without budget and sourcing constraints I would want to see double the rating on the terminals I’m using (over-driving) now.
@Brook_Drumm CC is a copyright license and not applicable to hardware. it will protect (in theory it hasn’t been tested in court yet) your drawings and printed material (manuals, docs, etc) but by law does not protect manufactured goods that do the same thing asyour design. For that you need a patent. This is an area where OSS licensing differs greatly than OSHW licensing.
I’m using CC because I’m not trying to protect the designs, just suggesting attribution for those community minded folks who wish to credit it to us. It’s all moving to a license requesting attribution and share and share alike-- we are dropping the non-commercial part. So I am fine with the limitations. I’ll protect the metal fabrication files by not publishing them. I know it doesn’t stop reverse engineering, but I don’t want patents so it’s all good.
Brook
@Brook_Drumm Hardware isn’t going to be covered by a copyright license unless Congress changes the law. Legally it’s no different than you applying a NC license. While it may meet the OSHWA definition, legally it does nothing. Regardess of what anyone at Adafruit (great company, BTW) says a CC license will not be legally binding.
It may give you some upside in that open hardware stalwarts may look at it more favorable (like me…) but as stated prior the cloners and people buying them don’t care. I think that’s too bad but it’s the reality this day and age. I think attribution is critical to an open environment but it’s nothing more than a gentleman’s agreement to let everyone know where you got the idea.
@dstevens_lv the source files will be, i think the point that @Brook_Drumm is making is if someone posts the source files, he wants attributions. Those and the derivatives are covered by the CC
Dstevens, I understand. Since I don’t need anything legally binding, I’m ok with it. Yes, it’s a gentleman’s agreement but it’s what we have right now.
Brook
ARM is all well and good, but there are lots of flavors. I think an ARM with some FPGA, or the PRU’s like on the BB’s are the most promising for future motion controllers. Running an OS and apps on the controller for gcode interpretation and motion planning is great, but the actual hardware control should be on dedicated hardware.
@Joseph_Chiu Regarding firmware, having a dedicated embedded device is common (in fact standard) on machine tools. I use machines from Flow, Torchmate, Shopbot and Universal and while each is a different process they all have a design where the firmware resides on the machine and the control/interface is on a PC.
The reason they aren’t on integrated boards I think has more to do with the availability of integrated solutions when the machines were designed compared to now where a board and a shield or cape is all that is needed to implement a stanalone solution. Add to the mix the upcoming Arduino TRE and now integrated host and controller packages become easier to do on a single board though archetecturally it’s an AVR controlling the machine and a PC controlling the interface and file prep.
I think right now the biggest challenge for more wide scale adoption of 3D printing on the consumer level are the software tool chain and interface. With the right software implementation integration such as this will go a long way to reaching that goal.
I’m all for integrating a base set of features onto the controller board. People have been doing that from the days of FLASH-embedded DOS boards! My point is that with most of the software written for a “desktop OS” type environment, the hard real time requirements of the machine control should really be on a dedicated chunk of hardware separate from the higher-level functionality.