Power, Memory and Schematics


Pretty sure it was clarified that the license applies to the documents describing the design and not necessarily the design itself.

That said, the Pyra is a very competitive device whose form factor seems to be gaining in popularity. Just to stem the tide of clones, I'm ok with even the design being NC for some period of time. Especially given their friendliness and openness, this team deserves to profit from this design.
 
Pretty sure it was clarified that the license applies to the documents describing the design and not necessarily the design itself.

This is important.

A a small, non-profit software project can distribute it's work at minimal cost.
A similarly small, non-profit hardware project will always have manufacturing costs to cover, so it's pretty much impossible to have non-commercial hardware.

That said, the Pyra is already an outstandingly open and community-spirited project.
There'll be plenty of time for petty squabbling once production has started and orders are shipping.
 
Wow - it's a borderline miracle that the Pyra is likely to exist at all. They're publishing the keys to the kingdom on it - just asking that you don't recreate or modify it and claim ownership or charge for what they gave for free. The team has invested a lot of money in this, hasn't made any back - and have already published they keys to recreate it. Too soon in my humble opinion - I'd have waited until the first few rounds of production were cranked out and maybe not release this version's docs until the next version's developments were well near completion. But the fact that people complain about this? Wow.
 
Wow - it's a borderline miracle that the Pyra is likely to exist at all. They're publishing the keys to the kingdom on it - just asking that you don't recreate or modify it and claim ownership or charge for what they gave for free. The team has invested a lot of money in this, hasn't made any back - and have already published they keys to recreate it. Too soon in my humble opinion - I'd have waited until the first few rounds of production were cranked out and maybe not release this version's docs until the next version's developments were well near completion. But the fact that people complain about this? Wow.
^^^Agree with you completely here
 
Just to stem the tide of clones, I'm ok with even the design being NC for some period of time
It won't, as was mentioned several times, EvilDragon already said the license applies ONLY to the documentation, that hardware produced via the documentation is completely open. The NC is presumably only to prevent the documentation from going up behind a paywall and people getting scammed.
"That's stupid", you may think. "Why would anyone pay for something they could get for free?". Two answers: 1) they don't realize it's free elsewhere, they've simply stumbled upon something that looks like it could be cool on what they can only presume is the official website (cause why wouldn't it be?) and the documentation only costs $20, maybe it'll be good for their project. 2) they know about the free documents but the for-money documents are advertised slightly differently, maybe there's something more to them.
I've personally been caught by that second one: I had a computer problem, I found an official response that wasn't to my liking, but then behind a paywall I caught a glimpse of something that very much promised to solve my problem, so I paid the $15... and it was literally an exact copy of the original document I'd had. I complained and got a refund, but if it happened once it can happen again, and eventually it happens to someone who doesn't try to get a refund.
In any event, preventing sale of the documentation does not cause any hindrance to any reproduction efforts.

edit: all of which you said, succinctly, in your first paragraph. Damnit, I'm really off my game today. Sorry.

The ND clause in the license for the design files clearly makes it unfit to be considered OSH as defined by the OSHWA [1], which I would consider to be the most reputable reference for an OSH definition.
If you know of any other OSH definition that allows for ND designs, then I'd be honestly interested in seeing that.
Where did you get ND from? I agree, ND could prevent it from being OSH, but I don't see anyone mentioning ND anywhere in the last 8 pages. Page 1, EvilDragon says CC-BY-NC-SA. And again, that only applies to documentation anyway.
 
Where did you get ND from? I agree, ND could prevent it from being OSH, but I don't see anyone mentioning ND anywhere in the last 8 pages. Page 1, EvilDragon says CC-BY-NC-SA. And again, that only applies to documentation anyway.
As Nilsnsn pointed out, I just mixed it up. That however, doesn't change my point. The OSHWA definition neither allows NC nor ND.
 
1. The case

The final changes have now all been implemented. FormAction plans to produce a bunch of cases tomorrow (at least thirty, so enough for all prototypes).
They also already created the molds for the silicon that's needed to seal the speakers, and hopefully we'll get those preapplied to the cases as well.

Can't wait for them :)
Once we got them and the keymats, I can finally build the prototype units for devs and the ones who ordererd one.
We might sell a few more of them as well, but not before they're ready to be shipped.

So - how did the latest cases turn out?

I still want to see a picture of a couple dozen running Pyra prototypes in a rainbow of case colors sitting on a table. It would be the only opportunity for a 'family picture' after all.
 
Pretty sure it was clarified that the license applies to the documents describing the design and not necessarily the design itself.

well, than the value of the license being NC is even less clear.

That said, the Pyra is a very competitive device whose form factor seems to be gaining in popularity. Just to stem the tide of clones, I'm ok with even the design being NC for some period of time. Especially given their friendliness and openness, this team deserves to profit from this design.

Yes, I can fully get behind that, that the Pyra & its developers deserves some protection for some time. But then, a time-bomb license or a promise to the community that the design material will be open and free in the foreseeable future ( << Bern conventions copyright terms) would a great response to the community.

Is that so? I know, a lot of people were always hoping that, but has there ever been an official statement that the Pyra would meet the requirements of being considered OSH?.

Not explicitely, but it was also not denied. It was an option, some people hoped for and pre-ordered for. To some good degree this is an community financed project built on the trust of community that the developers will not misuse the resources given to them and give back to community. I think now to blame people for their trust ("naiive") in the developers is not the right response here for an community backed project. While I would not "demand" a more free license (the current one is better than most things on the marked but worse than the Neo900) I have to admit I hoped for an announcement too that the material will be released fully free in some time (at least preventing it becoming a orphaned work in the future).

And, some one asked if there were indications that hoping for a free license is substantiated, there was an indication: the press material was offered under a fully free license, which lead to the well filled Wikipedia page (would have not worked with a NC license).
 
As Nilsnsn pointed out, I just mixed it up. That however, doesn't change my point. The OSHWA definition neither allows NC nor ND.
Right, but again, this only applies to the document. So the document itself doesn't qualify as "free". That doesn't necessarily translate into any device produced by following the document, especially considering that EvilDragon has explicitly stated the opposite.
 
let's have a poll! (just kidding. :-||)

choosing a license is definitely an awesome responsibility, and give props/kudos to ED and hns for their choice. i understand the reasoning (and appreciate not getting paywalled), and anyone who wants to change the document presumably wants to sell a modified Pyra, or will have people send theirs in to get modified, where they can make their money back... the NC choice means they can't sell their documentation; they have to make a meaningful contribution in physical reality to get paid. (not that their design changes wouldn't be meaningful, but that their changes would be minuscule in comparison to what ED/hns have already created, design-wise, and the Pyra team chose not to get paid for their documentation.)

i support them 100% for that choice.
 
Admittedly, I couldn't find an explicit claim by ED himself, but I did find...

Mass media, since May at least, have been reporting the Pyra as OSHW:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/05...-game-console-is-now-available-for-pre-order/
http://www.linux-arm.info/index.php...r-game-console-is-now-available-for-pre-order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonBox_Pyra

As well as many comments suggesting I am not the only customer who believes it was going to be open.

Also, it is a kind of prerequisite to people being able to make their own upgrades. Most of us, myself included, have no background in hardware design and would need to pay someone to produce an upgraded CPU board (which would be commercial use of the schematics).

Note also that the Neo900 which is closely related to the Pyra (including also being designed by hns) is under the free CC-BY-SA-4.0 (ie, no NC clause) license. So why is Pyra getting second-class treatment in this respect?

Pretty sure it was clarified that the license applies to the documents describing the design and not necessarily the design itself.
In that case, we have no license to the design whatsoever and cannot produce or modify it at all.
 
I "target" nobody in particular, but I just get in line with hns post :
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/power-memory-and-schematics.78631/page-4#post-1398892
if someone is not happy, nothing forbids him/her do build his/her own device.

Wow, And I thought I was bad at marketing.

Nothing forbids anyone to cancel preorders (specially if any feature is not as advertised or the shipping date is delayed) or not follow on with the rest of the payment
(specially if expectations, founded or not in true facts or compromises, are not met and people find themselves deceived even by third parties or their own assumptions and not the seller).

I thank again hns and EvilDragon and zmatt and so many others. They've put something between a very recognizable and gratefulworthy effort and devotion "beyond duty" and who knows if excessive dedication (if at all health threatening). Yet we must realize the point is not whether we are thankful or unthankful, or whether they are genius. It's we should work to understand each other and the best for the project, not try to play fans or divas. Artists (art in a general sense) have a tendency to believe their work is good enough so that they have a right to earn money from it. For better or worse the world does not work this way. In order to earn money somebody else has to give it to you, and in legal and honest businesses that means you have to convince them they'll get something for it more valuable than they put in, and more valuable than the other offers they could put their money in. And I thank all the preorderers than have put money in so that the project has been able to get this far (and will hopefully get further). And all who helped with comments, views, suggestions... because I believe they made the product better.

The point here is not legal possibilities, obligations and personal freedom to disengage and disperse. It is obvious that authors choose licenses and consumers choose works they consume. The point is if we can reach some consensus on what we all can flock together to achieve. It is a sort of collective negotiation, from very different standpoints since some people only reads and writes comments, other only put some money in, others offer valuable advice or code, others manage the funds and schedule, others create and test, etc.
Those are very different roles, but it would be easier to approach consensus if people could share why they need a thing or why it is too costly.Negotiation is usually about disclosing as much as you can on what you want and what you need, so that some common point between each party requirements can be found. The other side of the coin is bargaining is about keeping enough information confidential that the other parties don't know how much they can't really get from you. But hiding too much stalls any negotiation.

For example, hns not only said it is his prerrogative to choose license, it said some reasons he did so. I find the paywall argument a little weak,
since for that same reason no free culture would exist. The argument saying derivatives will always need more liberal terms than NC because
people will have to pay for one-off, prototypes or production, sounds more convincing to me, yet I'm no electronics engineer or business person.
The argument on OSHW being only for chip makers explains some percentage of reality but leaves counter examples.

I would welcome more debate in the style of "if this kind of work is published with this license this or that can happen and this is good or bad
for the project" (including of course authors). I think disclosing as much as early has already been useful and positive. From my ignorance it looks
as if a little while after publishing schematics someone looked at them and suggested to add fine or fast capacitors or something and that's still
the more likely fix to the frequency optimization, so fine. As I undesrstand (though IANAL) if the volunteer helping would not have been an
engineer on his own time but an engineer boss who wanted to assign a little paid time of one of her engineers to help the project (maybe as
training between projects or for whatever reason) he would have had to negotiate a different license first (consuming maybe the time between
projects and redenring the effort void) because By-SA-NC does not even allow unmodified redistribution for commercial purpose. As others say I find the
license less useful than could be, but the publication time earlier than expected, so that's good. And I still haven't heard this will be the last
design publication or the definitive license. I also understand that when you publish too soon you could even mislead people who start basing
work on a non-definitive version or whatever, so there's no hurry, I think (it also looks like schematics should be close to definitive, and people
getting prototypes soon may need it, so possibly appropiate).

For me this debate is useful and more than the choice of license, I'm frustrated that the authors simply dismissed debate for lack of time. I understand they have too much important
work to do and this takes time. I also think it would take more expert advice (lawyers, business experts on OSHW or circular economy or whatever,
I even don't know the specialities, but there are people studying this organizational aspects, see the Free Knowledge Institute, or OSHA, or Open Ecology, or others).
But I also think there's still time before the product ships to argue about how much openness can reinforce the product value proposition.

Come on, people argue about colors and keyboard layouts, but we can't argue about licenses? What drew interest in Tolosa ? The color ?
the key glyphs ? or the openness and versatility and tinkerability ?
Nobody is expecting to dictate the color, or the layout or the license, but that does not stop people from debating, and authors from listening,
learning and using the information as they see fit (possibly adding to the debate or calling in external experts who might be interested, because
I think some of us are chiming in with incomplete knowdlege).
I don't feel very motivated to try to contribute to this debate if the ones taking the final decisions are simply not going to listen or spend any time asking
relevant questions or even welcome it.
 
Right, but again, this only applies to the document. So the document itself doesn't qualify as "free". That doesn't necessarily translate into any device produced by following the document, especially considering that EvilDragon has explicitly stated the opposite.
Not if we follow the OSHWA definition. Let me quote the relevant part:
Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design.
(highlights added by me.)

Again, if you know any other OSH definition from a reputable source that allows for NC clauses, I'd be interested in seeing it. But until then I'm going to assume that the OSHWA definition is what really counts when it has to be decided whether a license makes a product OSH or not.

Admittedly, I couldn't find an explicit claim by ED himself, but I did find...

Mass media, since May at least, have been reporting the Pyra as OSHW:
I think we should make a very clear distinction between official statements of the Pyra staff and 3rd-party media reports here.
You can't hold the Pyra devs responsible for what the media have reported.
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I have to admit I hoped for an announcement too that the material will be released fully free in some time
That may (or may not) still happen.
Actually, I was surprised to see the design be published before the final product is delivered. I wouldn't have done that at this point of time, due to fear of copycats. So what the community has right now is certainly better than what it would have, if I were in charge. But even so, it has to be noted, that this is not a free (as in speech) license.
 
Not if we follow the OSHWA definition. Let me quote the relevant part
Fair enough, I was considering just the physical hardware part, but you make an excellent argument.
If someone takes this specification and designs an x86 module, from what ED and hns have said there should be nothing preventing them from creating and selling such a module, but the restrictions on the documentation mean that they could not design it and then simply sell their work to a company that would be willing to produce it instead.
That is indeed a problem. Not everyone has the resources to go through with mass production, but someone good enough to do the work deserves to be paid for their efforts if they design such a thing anyway.
 
The Pyra's schematics were promised to be opened up later on. That has happened.
I don't remember the part where it was said the Pyra is going to be "Open-source Hardware as defined by the OSHWA"™.

Discussions are fine, but I believe we already heard everything relevant from hns regarding the licensing decisions.

but the restrictions on the documentation mean that they could not design it and then simply sell their work to a company that would be willing to produce it instead.
You are allowed to learn from the design and used it in your own. Such module would be a separate piece of hardware on its own, therefore has standalone schematics created by yourself based on your acquired knowledge about the SoC board interface.
 
Admittedly, I couldn't find an explicit claim by ED himself, but I did find...

Probably, because I never said that. I said that it will be opened, but that doesn't include opened for commercial use as well.

Also, it is a kind of prerequisite to people being able to make their own upgrades. Most of us, myself included, have no background in hardware design and would need to pay someone to produce an upgraded CPU board (which would be commercial use of the schematics).

No, why should it?
As stated in the first post: NC means that you are not allowed to SELL the schematics, make direct commercial use of the schematics.
You can learn from it and recreate the exact same device, even for commercial purposes, if you like.
You are just not allowed to take the schematics document and sell it to someone.
Documents itself cannot be patented.

And about the CPU upgrade board:
Even if we kept the full system closed up, this doesn't affect the possibility for anyone to produce an upgrade board.

All your components in your PC are closed as well (I guess), yet 3rd party developers are allowed to produce expansion cards (PCI, PCIe, etc.)

This is no commercial use in any way.

So I'm not sure what everone is concerned about.

You may...
  • Take the schematics (and other parts we'll publish later) and learn from them, modify them, share them, create a PCB design from them or recreate them and use your design commercially.
  • Produce any upgrade boards, modifications, etc. for private or commercial use, without any restrictions.
  • Use the published stuff and produce your own Pyras for private use
You may not...
  • Sell the original schematics (and other parts we'll publish later) as they are to anyone else
  • Use the PCB layout files to produce Pyras for commercial use (unless you created your own PCB layouts from the schematics)

So basically, this license does not restrict anyone for fair use, but prevents other companies (chinese, etc.) to simply take the published PCB design files and produce clone devices without any development costs, etc.

BTW: Development has cost us about 200k EUR so far, and those costs are not included in the preorder, only the production costs...
 
Probably, because I never said that. I said that it will be opened, but that doesn't include opened for commercial use as well.



No, why should it?
As stated in the first post: NC means that you are not allowed to SELL the schematics, make direct commercial use of the schematics.
You can learn from it and recreate the exact same device, even for commercial purposes, if you like.
You are just not allowed to take the schematics document and sell it to someone.
Documents itself cannot be patented.

And about the CPU upgrade board:
Even if we kept the full system closed up, this doesn't affect the possibility for anyone to produce an upgrade board.

All your components in your PC are closed as well (I guess), yet 3rd party developers are allowed to produce expansion cards (PCI, PCIe, etc.)

This is no commercial use in any way.

So I'm not sure what everone is concerned about.

You may...
  • Take the schematics (and other parts we'll publish later) and learn from them, modify them, share them, create a PCB design from them or recreate them and use your design commercially.
  • Produce any upgrade boards, modifications, etc. for private or commercial use, without any restrictions.
  • Use the published stuff and produce your own Pyras for private use
You may not...
  • Sell the original schematics (and other parts we'll publish later) as they are to anyone else
  • Use the PCB layout files to produce Pyras for commercial use (unless you created your own PCB layouts from the schematics)

So basically, this license does not restrict anyone for fair use, but prevents other companies (chinese, etc.) to simply take the published PCB design files and produce clone devices without any development costs, etc.

BTW: Development has cost us about 200k EUR so far, and those costs are not included in the preorder, only the production costs...
Only problem, the Chinese don't follow licences lmao
 
IMHO the entire license good/bad/other discussion should be stripped out and moved somewhere other than this news thread. It has derailed what should be a bunch of nerds shouting, "OMG!OMG! the Pyra Prototypes are going to get assembled and shipped soon!!!"

This thread started with so many things worthy of celebration and has become another extended diatribe by, "Open/Free Fundamentalists". Unwilling to celebrate how open the schematics are for the hobbyist community (see also: The rest of us.) , they insist on full and faithful adherence to a doctrine that was never (and should never be) agreed to by any entity developing 'stuff' with the intent on making money off of their ideas, labor and investment.

Can we get back to talking about how awesome the entire contents of this news post actually are?

Did the cases arrive? And where is the 'Prototype Family Photo'? <nudge>
 
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