LOL. I'm not sure why I'm still in this conversation, having said and raised the points I thought needed raising. But -- you're right -- broken stuff is more fun than boring unbroken stuff..
..anyway, since you ask...
> For small values of "works". You want us to "educate them and give them the information needed". How do we do so?
1. Clarify the
legal 'licensing preference' position and language. Given the context of RepRap as a 3D printer that prints objects, the language here, specifically the part that says "People can take your stuff and build composite stuff and it's still covered by the GPL" is misleading and wrong... people can take your stuff, build composite stuff, and it is NOT covered by the GPL (unless by build, you mean run 'make' to build firmware and software.) Language could either be changed to state the true current position: "People can take your files and software and build better software modules, and it's still covered by the GPL". Better, add the clause I suggested in a prior post that discusses the legal issues and lack of license concerning the actual bits and parts that can be printed on a printer, even if they use GPL designs and files. If you prefer, reinforce the open source philosophy that users are encouraged to fully disclose all modifications for hardware they've printed and given to others by including there modifications. Suggest that if this aspect of "open source hardware" is important and contribution is hardware based, that the users consider licensing using TAPR OHL, since GPL would be a poor fit for a hardware design and documentation only contribution.
2. Better, in source code containing RepRap model files, STLs, build documentation, electronic schematics/images, material manifests, etc. license them under the TAPR OHL license. As these files aren't used to 'build source code', the GPL doesn't really have much bearing there anyway, and may have some use if someone tries to use and distribute any RepRap component while claiming proprietary designs, software, or patents would protect them from disclosuring their changes or modifications.
That would be a good start. Did you have any better suggestions?
NOTE, on the subject of 'education', a while back when I went to the [
reprap.org] site, with 2 or 3 clicks from the home page, I could find a link to the sourceforge url, or links with discussion on the software packages to download. When I tried this yesterday, it took me to the main wiki page (probably good if that's where we are trying to consolidate), but for the life of me, I could not figure out the magic sequence of links to click thru to to get to the sourceforge source code packages. I ended up going to google and doing a search for 'sourceforge reprap' to find it -- it seems new users who want to build a mendel would not know the magic search string to find this site. Shouldn't all the "Here is a 10 part step process to get everything you need, starting from nothing", including links to bills of materials, links to software needed, links to build hardware instructions, etc be one of the top level pages? Thoughts? (Should I create a new thread, or did I just miss the obvious button on the wiki somehow?)