StargirlDec 19

I really wish Prusa had tried to work with OSI, CC, and/or OSHWA instead of greenfielding a new license.

Even if the principle behind this license wasn't misguided, I don't think it's precise enough to legally accomplish any of the goals Prusa stated.

Please don't use this.

https://blog.prusa3d.com/core-one-cad-files-release-under-the-new-open-community-license-ocl_127290/

Open-sourcing CORE One CAD Files Under the New Open Community License (OCL) - Original Prusa 3D Printers

Today, we are releasing the full CAD files for the CORE One and CORE One L frames. You can download them right now, load them into your CAD software and use them to create mods and accessories, import them to Fusion...

Original Prusa 3D Printers
Show threadIvo StružinskýDec 20
@stargirl I might just be ignorant about license legalese, but I don’t see how releasing the files under new license is a big problem. Like the files are released and the license specifies what you can do with them, isn’t that what licenses are ultimately for? Not trying to argue or anything, just honestly curious about where the issue lies.
Show threadStargirl
@delltar from a micro perspective, yeah, it doesn't matter- release your stuff under whatever terms you want, even silly ones like wtfpl. But zooming out to the macro, Prusa has a lot of influence, and is encouraging others to adopt this deeply misguided and flawed license. They're portraying it as "open source" while directly working against some of the core freedoms of the broad accepted definitions of Open Source. This hurts the overall ecosystem.
Dec 20 at 6:19pmWeb
Show threadIvo StružinskýDec 20
@stargirl yeah but I guess what I’m not getting is what makes it flawed and misguided? Is it that it prevents people from taking the designs and selling identical machines?
Show threadStargirlDec 20

@delltar

Misguided in that (a) it attempts to do something that licenses can not accomplish and (b) encourages others to adopt it under the pretense of providing protection or being "open source".

Flawed in that the license text is so poorly written and vague that it won't hold up to legal scrutiny at all, and would likely put anyone trying to enforce its terms in a worse legal position than if they'd used one of the existing licenses.

Show threadIvo StružinskýDec 21
@stargirl I see! Well, maybe it’s a good thing that first one to test whether the license can hold up or not will be Prusa with their core one printers. Considerations about legal strength of the license aside though, I still count it as a win for the community that they released the CAD files.
Show threadStargirlDec 21
@delltar it's a pyrrhic victory, since it misleads about being open source and encourages others to take this seriously. It's no different than an appliance manufacturer including technical drawings in a fridge's owner's manual, except in this case they're lying about why.
Show threadIvo StružinskýDec 21
@stargirl idk, I guess that if an appliance manufacturer made a fridge, released the FW of that fridge under GPL and CAD files under some sort of license that lets me do anything except selling a clone of that fridge, I’d be fine calling that an open source fridge. 😅 But that gets into the somewhat philosophical debate on what is and isn’t open source and that is probably out of scope of a masto thread. 🙂
Show threadStargirlDec 21

@delltar That isn't an open source fridge, that's literally every fridge made before the year 2000. Just because the manufacturer gives you the technical drawings to repair or replace parts doesn't make the product open source.

Open source has specific, widely accepted definitions driven by core principles and freedoms. Prusa has been clawing back on this for years now, and it sucks that he's misleading people.