TAPR Open Hardware License

The TAPR Open Hardware License is a license used in open-source hardware projects. It was created by Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR), an international amateur radio organization. Version 1.0 was published on May 25, 2007.

According to the official website, like the GNU General Public License, the OHL is designed to guarantee freedom to share and to create. It forbids anyone who receives rights under the OHL to deny any other licensee those same rights to copy, modify, and distribute documentation, and to make, use and distribute products based on that documentation.[1]

Contents

Conditions

Although the TAPR OHL aims to maintain the philosophy of open-source software, there are obvious differences in physical reality which require some differences in licenses. As a result, the license defines two conditions, Documentation, as in design information and Products, as in the physical products created from them.

Terms

According to the text of the license [2],

Adoption

The TAPR OHL is the license for the materials from the Open Graphics Project as of April 7, 2009.[3] The TAPR OHL is the license for the materials from Lotus Green Data Centers as of July 28, 2008.[4][5]

Noncommercial

There is also a TAPR Noncommercial Hardware License, which is similar but does not allow for commercial application.[6]

Criticism

Former OSI president Eric S. Raymond expressed some concerns about certain aspects of the OHL. According to Raymond, the license has "lots of problems" and that it "strips the word 'distribution' of its normal meaning, assuring lots of contention over edge cases."[7] OSI has not chosen to review the TAPR license or to review or certify any Open Hardware Licenses at all.

The Open Hardware License may merely place the design and/or idea into the Public Domain by effectively publishing it before securing the benefits of patent protection.[8]

See also

References