Open/Closed or Somewhere-in-between source?

[rurwin]

My understanding from hearing Eben’s talk from Hacker News London, is that the Open source hardware movement promotes breaking the law, because every electronic product needs CE compliance.

My understanding is a little different. Every electronic product that is sold and is not a component of a larger system is required to have a CE mark So it would apply to the Raspberry Pi, but not to an add-on board. . But that's from memory, not research. Someone check if a PCI board is marked.

Also it would not of been mist, by the darkside that the R-PI would make a very cheap portable penetration testing box, that could be left in place gathering information.

And I am sure they are positively gloating about the physical evidence that is deisgned to be handled over to the investigators without even a court order.

[abishur]

I also think piracy is an laudable and praiseworthy act. It deprives hopeless idiots of their 'intellectual property'

Without commenting on open/closed source, I will say that we've taken a very strong anti-breaking the law stance when it comes to the use of the R-pi. While I hold no illusions that *any* computer device can and eventually will be use for illegal purposes, I do ask that you don't actively promote the breaking of laws on the forums.

It is possible to discuss the real lunacy of certain anti-piracy laws without actively encouraging piracy

My understanding from hearing Eben’s talk from Hacker News London, is that the Open source hardware movement promotes breaking the law, because every electronic product needs CE compliance.
How much Open source hardware is ? and are not the original designers of the schematics responsible for CE compliance, this is yet to be tested.

Seriously? Where were you two months ago? The pi went through CE testing big time, much to our chagrin! And not to get back into the CE debates, but there are many and varied laws concerned CE testing (or FCC here in the states or C-tick in Australia, etc, etc) and the long and short is not every device has to have (insert your countries standard here) testing.

Also it would not of been mist, by the darkside that the R-PI would make a very cheap portable penetration testing box, that could be left in place gathering information.

No it has not been missed about the way *any* computer can be used to gather information, and we've closed three, maybe four, threads which wanted to do exactly that with the pi for the reasons I mentioned in my post. While the RPF can't stop anyone from abusing the pi for nefarious purposes, they can enforce a don't promote or tell others how to on our forums.

[hippy]

My understanding from hearing Eben’s talk from Hacker News London, is that the Open source hardware movement promotes breaking the law,

There may be individuals within the movement who have a more laissez-faire attitude to the law than others but I don't believe law breaking is a principle they collectively stand behind.

because every electronic product needs CE compliance.

Not everything does and it depends on exactly what the "product" is.

How much Open source hardware is ?

I'm sure there is stuff out there that does not have CE compliance or certification when it should but that can be closed as much as open hardware. How much I have no idea.

and are not the original designers of the schematics responsible for CE compliance

I don't believe the designers of schematics are responsible for CE compliance as it's the product that has to comply. The authorities would pursue the manufacturers / resellers / distributors in respect of any lack of CE compliance. It would be an unlikely case that they could pass the buck partly or entirely onto the schematic designers.

An analogy may be that manufacturers of cars that can exceed the speed limit are not responsible for individuals breaking the speed limit.

[rurwin]

and are not the original designers of the schematics responsible for CE compliance

I don't believe the designers of schematics are responsible for CE compliance as it's the product that has to comply. The authorities would pursue the manufacturers / resellers / distributors in respect of any lack of CE compliance. It would be an unlikely case that they could pass the buck partly or entirely onto the schematic designers.

Not even the manufacturers are responsible if they are outside the European Union (or some such designated area). Then it would be the importer, which for a product such as the BeagleBoard, would be the buyer. I'm not about to wade through the wording of the legislation to find out if that is only triggered when the board is re-sold, but I imagine that the OFT, Ofcom or HMRC has better things to do than come after private individuals over a single infringing item that they don't know about.

On the other hand if your crappy unmarked product interferes with my television reception, then I might complain to Ofcom and you may be told to either stop using it or bring it into compliance.

[scep]

I'd like this thread to continue as it is interesting and thought provoking. As per abishur's previous request, can we please all play nice and keep personal / ad hominem comments out of it. Ta.

[DexOS]

Seriously? Where were you two months ago? The pi went through CE testing big time, much to our chagrin! And not to get back into the CE debates, but there are many and varied laws concerned CE testing (or FCC here in the states or C-tick in Australia, etc, etc) and the long and short is not every device has to have (insert your countries standard here) testing.

I was not talking about the PI, i know it went through its tests, i was talking about the open source hardware movement :
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253969/o ... imacy.html
They want us all to make our own hardware.

CE testing is needed on any electronic product that is a radio (so any electronic product, that has a frequency) thats most electronic product.

[gritz]

CE testing is needed on any electronic product that is a radio (so any electronic product, that has a frequency) thats most electronic product.

"Finished end products" require compliance testing. If a manufacturer considers a product to be intended for development / evaluation / demonstration purposes only then they may choose not to compliance test and will likely stick a disclaimer on the documentation. Bit of a grey area and the sort of thing that keeps lawyers in gravy. From memory the "radio" thing is applicable to devices that are intentional radiators.

Of course, if you happen to be a far-eastern powerhouse you may choose to invent a logo that is almost indistinguishable from the CE mark and plaster all your cheap tat with it:

[tufty]

I was aways on the side of open source, all my work was open source, but i am now moving towards closed source.

Dex. You've mentioned this a few times, any chance you could explain exactly *how* you got burned with the open source approach?

Simon

[hippy]

CE testing is needed on any electronic product that is a radio (so any electronic product, that has a frequency) thats most electronic product.

No; only certain products. And 'having a frequency' doesn't in itself make something a radio nor automatically necessitate CE testing.

Sub-assemblies do not usually require CE testing / certification. Something can in itself be non-conforming but as long as the finished product including it is CE certified then that is perfectly acceptable.

Finished product - Usually require CE testing / certification

Sub-assembles to be used in finished products - Usually don't require CE testing / certification

But there can be a fine line between what is a sub-assembly and what is a finished product in its own right, for example PC plug-in cards.

There are certain other products that may be exempt from requiring CE certification, commonly 'development boards' and similar. Again, there's a fine line between what is exempt and what is not as found with the R-Pi.

The above applies just as much for physical items the open source hardware movement produces as it does for commercial or any other manufacturers.

Then there's the case where hobbyists or individuals builds something themselves which usually won't be CE tested. As their resulting 'product' is for personal use it doesn't require CE marking per se but should, at least in some respects, be CE compliant to be used. As it's possible to self-certify a hobbyist can simply claim that it is compliant. Whether or not it actually is compliant is a somewhat different matter but the user should ensure that it is and there may be adverse consequences for the user if it is not.

There are multiple parts to the CE issue; compliance and when that's mandated, how to ensure or confirm compliance, how to indicate compliance and when that is required.

[morphy_richards]

How do people feel about open source pharmaceuticals? Saving millions of lives because of the expertise put in by key people for the "greater good" and manufactured at low cost by countries like India? Is this stifling the development of new drugs and is it right to put this development by large capitalist corporations at risk for the sake of saving the lives of a few million people in poorer countries? Should these corporations own all the knowledge and should all the people develop soley for them?

[morphy_richards]

If everything was truly "closed source" how would we ever have progressed beyond living in mud houses as a species? Would we have even got that far?

[MrBunsy]

If everything was truly "closed source" how would we ever have progressed beyond living in mud houses as a species? Would we have even got that far?

I don't really see how that works as an analogy? You can still share ideas (analogous to algorithms) even if you don't share the exact implementation of the idea (analogous to source code). And the non-digital world is largely closed source by default - you can't just replicate tools and equipment with a few commands.

[rurwin]

the non-digital world is largely closed source by default - you can't just replicate tools and equipment with a few commands.

That's not comparing the same things -- speed of replication has nothing to do with how open a design is.

The fact is that when Ug built his mud and thatch hut, his friend Ig could copy every aspect of what he had done. That has been the case more or less over milenia until the last few decades when manufacturers have been able to hide their code in OTP memory. There has only been a concept of copyright (or patents) for a few hundred years. Before that people used other people's work like crazy. In fact it was seen as a mark of respect, as it is now in the open-source world.

The problem with the entire edifice is that both the comerce and the legal protection for it were built when the marginal cost of replication was quite high. A hundred years ago you needed a printing press in order to infringe a copyright. A pirate had to make many copies and then sell them in order to make economic sense. The publishing industry and the law both work quite well in that sort of world. But now the marginal cost of replication is zero. That means anyone can infringe a copyright, and they do not need to sell anything to make it worthwhile. Only manic protectionism by comerce is preventing complete market collapse, and the law is seen increasingly to be irrelevant or impotent.

[MrBunsy]

What of construction processes? Master craftsmen? Recipes and techniques for metal-working, or dye manufacture, or how to make silk (or gunpowder)? The idea that you can't tell how something was made by examining it strikes me as an old one, not a new digital-era only one.

[hippy]

How do people feel about open source pharmaceuticals?

If we have a truly open source pharma industry where people work for minimal rewards and no profit that could be potentially damaging as can be argued with open versus closed software. I don't think it has to be one or the other but we need to support both, and I believe both can coexist. The problem still remains when closed and/or commercial pharma comes up with the magic pill.

On one hand I don't believe people should be denied drugs simply because they cannot afford them but on the other I do believe companies deserve to get their development investments returned, and ( for the society we have ) to turn a profit on that.

One solution is to separate what people pay and how pharma is rewarded. The obvious way to do that at present is government pays pharma, government raises that money through taxes etc.

That works for me because I believe in collectivity and redistribution and have a socialist outlook. It won't work for someone who is ideologically opposed to that. I also don't have a problem with capping what profits pharma may make to arrive at an equitable solution.

[DexOS]

I was aways on the side of open source, all my work was open source, but i am now moving towards closed source.

Dex. You've mentioned this a few times, any chance you could explain exactly *how* you got burned with the open source approach?

Simon

Well there are two sides to every story and this is mine, a group of coders wanted a modern 32bit Dos like OS, something like what was in the original xbox but for a x86 PC (yes i know the original xbox was a x86).
This was 2002-2003 anyway i was in charge of coding the kernel as i had started to code a similar OS a year or so before, so had a head start and the rest were in charge of the forum, writing app, drivers and doc etc.
Every thing was fine even though no one in the group had written anything, all they did was to say this would be cool if we add this and that, you know a talking shop
The exception to this, was two coders one called hidnplayr and the other called roboman (Stephen), they did add app's and driver's but these came later.
Anyway a new member asked if he could run the web site as he wanted the forum to be part of the web site instead of the one we had, which had paid adverts.
I said OK, that was a BIG MISTAKE, now you have got to remember that 99% of code was done by me and the other by the two coders mentioned above.
First off i was not even made a mod on the new forum!!!!!, next the none coders decide to change the layout of the kernel and coded a lot of it in C, but i said no.

I said you can fork and use the code, but i want the domain.
But they kept the domain and started a new OS that give me some big problem's.
I lost my Wiki entry because of it, i had a write up in a big PC mag that all pointed to that domain but instead of finding the DexOS web site they found a forum with a lot of talk (not one line of code has been done in year and a half).There project is now as good as dead.

But think of this if you do start an open source project, how would like to spend ten years coding something, to find yourself where some one else has your OS, your code and your domain and you can do nothing about it.
And then need to start all over again, which is much harder now.

And once they killed the domain it ended up here: http://www.dex4u.com/
Also my top links, like this: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... ems-934484

All link to it.

Note: All the code source was marked as coded by "Team DexOS",
Just google it to see.

[hippy]

But think of this if you do start an open source project, how would like to spend ten years coding something, to find yourself where some one else has your OS, your code and your domain and you can do nothing about it.

Don't think I am entirely unsympathetic but this does sound more like a project management and control issue than one of open source. I've seen similar things happen with closed source and in other fields.

In any democracy, or with majority rule, things can go the way individuals within it may not like so the moral is to create a framework which gives the control needed, delivers what's desired, and prevents it being taken in directions you don't want it to go. Of course, that's often only realised with hindsight or when too late.

[tufty]

Man, that's a pretty sucky situation.

I tend to agree with hippy that it's more of a project management issue than a problem with open source development. Sounds like you were working with some complete [expletive deleted]s.

FWIW, removing copyright notices and replacing them with a generic one is probably legally actionable, regardless of the licensing terms. IANAL, though.

Simon

[rurwin]

There's legally actionable and then there's worth doing. Sometimes it just isn't worth throwing money after heartache.

I can see how that would be a major downer DexOS. You have my sincere sympathy.

I have seen this sort of thing happen several times, I was nearly part of it on one occasion, but those of us parachuted in ended up siding with the established party (to the great chagrin of the instigator.) But that has always been in the real-world; it happens a lot with hobby societies and event organisation. In my experience sometimes it's necessary (LibreOffice for example) but usually it's ego. When it's ego the establishment have plans and ability to move the project on, but they are vilified by the interlopers as incompetent and intransigent. In fact the opposite is usually the case, with the establishment having a track-record of comitment that the interlopers can not match. The very fact that the interlopers believe the establishment is intransigent proves that they have unrealistic expectations and will be rapidly disillusioned once they achieve control. In your case the fact that their project is dead and yours isn't speaks volumes. Especially since they didn't offer you the domain back after they had given up on it.

[darkcity]

It is infuriating that they took the domain and didn't use the option of forking. In future it might be worth copyrighting the domain/name and logos even if the source is open. This is what happens with Puppy linux, the name is copyright Barry Kauler (the original author)

....
Legal issues
Concerning the licencing of Puppy. Puppy is GPL, and has been for sometime. Awhile back, I went through all my scripts and made sure that they all had GPL notices in them. There are some closed-source but free apps in Puppy, such as Opera and the Flash-player, which is quite legitimate. The actual name "Puppy Linux" and my logos are copyrighted to me, which is also legitimate -- that is, does not contravene in any way the GPL licences of the applications in Puppy, or the overall "freeness" of the Puppy-project. If you come across anything on the web or Forum about licencing problems with Puppy, that concerns some of my scripts being copyrighted to me, but that is very old news, no longer valid.

If you do contribute anything to Puppy, artwork, themes, documentation, code, please understand that it will be classified as GPL. You can choose one of the GPL licences explicitly if you wish.
...

http://www.puppylinux.com/development/p ... tement.htm

[jamesh]

I was aways on the side of open source, all my work was open source, but i am now moving towards closed source.

Dex. You've mentioned this a few times, any chance you could explain exactly *how* you got burned with the open source approach?

Simon

Well there are two sides to every story and this is mine, a group of coders wanted a modern 32bit Dos like OS, something like what was in the original xbox but for a x86 PC (yes i know the original xbox was a x86).
This was 2002-2003 anyway i was in charge of coding the kernel as i had started to code a similar OS a year or so before, so had a head start and the rest were in charge of the forum, writing app, drivers and doc etc.
Every thing was fine even though no one in the group had written anything, all they did was to say this would be cool if we add this and that, you know a talking shop
The exception to this, was two coders one called hidnplayr and the other called roboman (Stephen), they did add app's and driver's but these came later.
Anyway a new member asked if he could run the web site as he wanted the forum to be part of the web site instead of the one we had, which had paid adverts.
I said OK, that was a BIG MISTAKE, now you have got to remember that 99% of code was done by me and the other by the two coders mentioned above.
First off i was not even made a mod on the new forum!!!!!, next the none coders decide to change the layout of the kernel and coded a lot of it in C, but i said no.

I said you can fork and use the code, but i want the domain.
But they kept the domain and started a new OS that give me some big problem's.
I lost my Wiki entry because of it, i had a write up in a big PC mag that all pointed to that domain but instead of finding the DexOS web site they found a forum with a lot of talk (not one line of code has been done in year and a half).There project is now as good as dead.

But think of this if you do start an open source project, how would like to spend ten years coding something, to find yourself where some one else has your OS, your code and your domain and you can do nothing about it.
And then need to start all over again, which is much harder now.

And once they killed the domain it ended up here: http://www.dex4u.com/
Also my top links, like this: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... ems-934484

All link to it.

Note: All the code source was marked as coded by "Team DexOS",
Just google it to see.

Agree with the other two comments - not an OSS issue, but a 'caught out by a bunch of A-holes' issue.
And although I do agree with many of your points above, I would say there are a lot of well paid software jobs out there. If you are any good, I recommend trying to get an interview with Broadcom. We cannot get enough decent engineers (UK or USA, plus other sites around the world) for love nor money, and we do pay well.

[obarthelemy]

If MS's line that the locked bootloader is there to prevent users from viruses is true, is it more immoral to let 99% of the population more open to viruses, or to deprive 1% of the population (the hackers), of multiboot on some machines ?

[tufty]

If MS's line that the locked bootloader is there to prevent users from viruses is true, is it more immoral to let 99% of the population more open to viruses, or to deprive 1% of the population (the hackers), of multiboot on some machines ?

If you don't impement a locked bootloader, you not only help the 1%, but by stopping windows from running, you also save the 99%. It's win/win whichever way you look at it...

Simon

[DexOS]

Thanks for all your support, maybe all of you are right it was just bad man management.

I am sure Broadcom do not want assembly programmers .

[darkcity]

If MS's line that the locked bootloader is there to prevent users from viruses is true, is it more immoral to let 99% of the population more open to viruses, or to deprive 1% of the population (the hackers), of multiboot on some machines ?

There is no need to implement it hardwired for Windows, you can have an equally secure bootlock that the user could deactivate. That is one import feature of Open Source, allowing the user to choose how to use the hardware. Also lack of diversity is a sure way to make a system vulnerable.

You need to look at Microsoft's motivates and past record. Are they more concerned with protecting the user or making money (under law it has to be making money). Have they ever tried to create an unfair monopoly before?