Please help us make the CERN OHL even better!
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Current list of things to look at for the next version
- 3.3d deals with the obligation of the licensees to send a notification to the licensors every time they make a modification they want to publish/distribute. It has been noted that, in version control systems like svn and git, people make frequent modifications that get automatically published because the repository is public. It is impractical, and not in the spirit of the licence, to have these licensees inform the licensors each time they commit a new version. This could be improved through a suitable definition of "Modification" in the Definitions paragraph.
- From the updates@lists.openhardwaresummit.org mailing list: "I like the idea of a required notification clause. But what we are saying is that it should carefully limit the effort that a person must go through to notify the originators. The most important reason for this is to protect the design from becoming legally unusable because it turns into a "orphaned work". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wikis/Orphan_works for an intro to the subject."
- From the updates@lists.openhardwaresummit.org mailing list: "I think that you might want to patch a "hole" in the definition of "Documentation" that allows people to distribute essentially unusable/unmodifiable forms of documentation, such as a photograph of the PCB layout. This adds teeth to your viral provision, otherwise I can claim I modified the documentation (both in content and format) and here is my out-of-focus, impossible to really use photo of the result. GPLv2 and v3 uses: The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."