general licence questions and vendors as well as eBay

Here's a question alot of stuff here is under the share alike nc license, but what does that really mean in practicality, tere are companies out there selling reprap's that include some of this stuff, also if you want to sell your reprap (let's say you've been building a few to keep cost down at once and then you sell the ones you won't use on eBay)
Now are people selling the stuff violating licenses here and what are the implications?
For example if I build a reprap and then build another one to cover my hobbies cost can I sell that on eBay or do I have to get permission from every single one of the contributors first? like traumflug (gen7) electronics and let's say wade (extruder) adrian (general design) prusa for his updates and the list would be pretty much endless
Just want to clear some things up
terramir

There are no licences for physical hardware, since you cannot copyright a functional design. That is what patents are for, and all the patents on reprap technology ran out a while ago.

The licences only apply to the design files. If you sell or alter the design files, then you need to obey the licence. Once the Parts are printed, the license does not apply to them since they are functional physical objects.

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www.Fablicator.com

Actually the Reprap and all derived works are under the GNU licence, so your understanding is not correct.

Reprap GNU General Public Licence

This a much more open licence, but the essentials are as follows:-

You can copy, sell, redistribute the designs, modify the design and sell that. In fact its actively encouraged.

You cannot take the design, modify it and then sell it as a closed source project. It must also be released under the GNU licence so others can do the same with your design. This means you need to make the models and firmware freely available for download. This is called copyleft where the licence also cascades down to the child projects.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 05:02PM by martinprice2004.

martinprice2004 Wrote:
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> Actually the Reprap and all derived works are
> under the GNU licence, so your understanding is
> not correct.
>
> Reprap GNU General Public Licence

That is true... but irrelevant to Andrew's point. Copyright law, and therefore the GPL, applies only to the design files. The actual FUNCTION of the RepRap, cannot be copyrighted, therefore cannot be covered by the GPL. Individual design elements, such as the frame vertexes could be coyrighted, but that coverage would be quite limited, and would not prevent someone else from making a similar frame vertex with just minor aesthetic redesigns.

The GPL is entirely based upon copyright law. In exchange for a copyright holder granting you certain rights that you would not normally have to a copyrighted work (specifically the right to reproduce), you agree to certain concessions (specifically that you will share any changes make). For any item that is not covered by copyright law, any claims of GPL protection are meaningless. You cannot copyright the functional design of a piece of hardware, only patent it, so the GPL provides no protection at all to the functional aspects of the RepRap.

Rereading your statement, I may have misunderstood you so that last bit may not have been relevant either. ;-)

The RepRap is GPLed (for what good it does, as noted above), but that does not mean that anything else that someone might want to include in their kit is. For example, before Arcol changed the license on his hot end, it was CC-NC licensed. While certainly the advances made by the RepRap community were vital to the creation of his hot end, it is a bit of a stretch to say it is derived from he works of the RepRap community, so it is within his rights to license it however he wants (though the CC-NC license is also largely meaningless for hardware).

the only thing that licensing something physical under a gpl/cc license can do is place a idea into common knowledge and therefore not unique or patentable.

I believe there were two questions that terramir asked as follows and are directly addressed in the GPL licence:-

"Now are people selling the stuff violating licenses here and what are the implications?"

"do I have to get permission from every single one of the contributors first? like traumflug (gen7) electronics and let's say wade (extruder) adrian (general DESIGN) prusa for his updates and the list would be pretty much endless?"

The GPL is very clear on this.... and the answers are as follows:-

1) No they are not violating the licence you can make and sell the design.
2) No he doesn't need to seek permission its already granted under the GPL licence.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2012 05:22AM by martinprice2004.

Ok What about the things covered under the share alike NC license like the electronics if I build for example a reprap (or derivative thereof) and let's say use gen7 electronics (because at the moment there the cheapest ones gen 7T will hopefully come to fruition then the whole thing will be even cheaper) what can be defined as commercial there?
I mean when does it become commercial?
Thanks for clearing the other points up.

terramir

You can ignore all the licenses. They have no legal meaning apart from the copyright on the design files. Think of them like a book. You buy a book that tells you how to make things. The copyright on the book means you can't copy the book and sell the copies, it doesn't mean you can't make the things described in the book and sell them. A CC-NC licence of a design file means you can't sell copies of the design file. It doesn't stop you selling objects built to the design contained in the file. The author probably thinks that it does, and morally perhaps you shouldn't, but there in no legal mechanism for stopping you other than patents unless it is a work of art.

IANAL.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2012 08:28PM by nophead.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Well I was just curious, I understand about patent's but I was wondering ettiquette around here. We all want to be part of a community not really get into fights about these things. Because truly everything here is based on the original teams work. I wonder what the original team members think about the licenses and how they interpret them.
terramir