I’m uncertain if the GPLv3 [1], or something from Creative Commons [3], like the CC-BY-SA [2] license, would be appropriate for open source hardware. I’ve come across the CERN-OHL-S [4], which appears interesting, but I’ve never encountered it in the wild, so I’m wary of it’s apparent obscurity.
References
- Type: Webpage. Title: “GNU General Public License”. Publisher: “GNU Operating System”. Accessed: 2025-09-04T21:29Z. URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html.
- Type: Webpage. Title: “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International”. Publisher: “Creative Commons”. Accessed: 2025-09-04T21:30Z. URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.
- Type: Webpage. Title: “About CC Licenses”. Publisher: “Creative Commons”. Accessed: 2025-04-09T21:31Z. URI: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/.
- Type: Text. Title: “CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 - Strongly Reciprocal”. Publisher: “CERN”. Accessed: 2025-04-09T21:33Z. URI: https://gitlab.com/ohwr/project/cernohl/-/wikis/uploads/819d71bea3458f71fba6cf4fb0f2de6b/cern_ohl_s_v2.txt.
I only do BSD, now.
I used to do GPL, and I still support free software and everyone’s ability to modify and extend projects for new and better purposes.
When some South Koreans were jailed for upholding my license terms when they spotted their employer violating them, and the FSF did little and less to help them avoid jail - which happens sometimes in Korea - I knew the GPL was still a good idea but in practice it exposes people to risk.
I can’t have that happen for my software again.
Can you expand on this Korea story? That’s not really making sense but I’m curious.
Wow. I also prefer BSD or ISC but why would korea jail people for using GPL!
[…] When some South Koreans were jailed for upholding my license terms when they spotted their employer violating them […]
If they had a court case, do you, by chance, have a source for it?
imo i wouldn’t overlook CERN too much due to apparent obscurity. that’s CERN as in WWW & LHC.
plus it’s specifically designed for hw, unlike most of the others which are more likely to lean sw centric?
if your hw is very sw-heavy you could even consider splitting the license types between firmware and hardware if it helps.
not saying what the right choice is for you, just the apparent obscurity i think isn’t such a big issue. but welcome correction.
imo i wouldn’t overlook CERN too much due to apparent obscurity. that’s CERN as in WWW & LHC.
plus it’s specifically designed for hw, unlike most of the others which are more likely to lean sw centric? […]
I think these are fair points!
The big question is how copyleft do you want to license it.
Which means, to what extend are the people building on top of your work allowed to keep their improvements and all downstream improvements for themselves and other future rights holder they might sell it to.
A copyleft license prevents someone from making an improvement and then treating the entire thing as their private property but also stop anyone else from making that improvement on your stuff and continuing progress.
So copyleft is, do you allow future devs building on your things to “pull the ladder up” on everyone else that come after them.
I’d go with no. But that means you cede control of it for yourself as well if you start including other people’s improvements into your design, unless you make them sign dual license “contributor license agreement” so that you can have both a private commercial right to the entire thing while also giving copyleft version to the community.
License Type Example License(s) Can someone “pull the ladder up” after building on your work? Can you integrate their improvements freely? Notes 🟥 Strong Copyleft CERN-OHL-S, GPLv3 ❌ No — downstream must open their changes ✅ Yes — everyone must share improvements Keeps the community free, but restricts proprietary use 🟧 Weak Copyleft CERN-OHL-W, LGPL ⚠️ Limited — changes to original must be open, but addons can be closed ✅ Mostly — improvements to original are open Allows extensions/plugins to be proprietary 🟨 Permissive CERN-OHL-P, Solderpad, MIT ✅ Yes — downstream can close everything ❌ No — unless you get permission, you can’t use their closed changes Maximizes adoption, but allows ladder-pulling 🟦 Dual Licensing GPL + commercial, or CLA-based ⚠️ Controlled — you allow copyleft for the public, but retain rights for commercial licensing ✅ Yes — you retain full rights via CLA Good if you want community contributions and a commercial option ⚪ Documentation-only (CC-BY, etc.) CC-BY, CC-BY-SA ⚠️ Depends — not designed for functional hardware, may not protect source ❌ Unclear — source availability not enforceable Use only for manuals, not functional designs
