Angela,

Hang in there, we should have our new license up on our site by next week.  It should hopefully address all your questions and concerns.  I will also be doing a blog post on this to make sure it's well known and understood.  I hope you'll both easily understand it and like it

st

Yes, a clearer license is coming soon, probably next week.  But this part won't really change.  The basic deal is that, essentially, we're providing our hardware design pretty freely to the community.  In return, any public innovations driven off of our design are available for us to use as well.  Doesn't say that we will -- in fact hard to imagine that we could, or would even want to, incorporate every great idea out there -- but just that we may.  We really can't allow our platform to be locked out of potential directions for future innovation -- that's one of the benefits of openness.  And then that innovation ends up back in the community under our license to engender further innovation.  That's what we're trying to accomplish with this approach.

It's now December & I still don't see any hints of licenses.

What I have heard is bunnies talk in Cory's class & something he said bothers me. {please correct me if I misinterpreted}

Part of the share-alike/sell-alike seems to apply to hardware.

I don't see how that's enforceable.  Board-level design is not protectable, at least in the USA.  The actual schematic drawing is copyrightable, but that only protects the expression, not the idea behind it.

http://www.chumby.com/resources/Rev21_pcb_release.pdf

is dead, so I don't know if there was an "agreement" on it or the TOS of chumby.com claims an agreement is formed by retrieving files.  Even without the schematic, I can legally follow traces on a PCB and create my own.

bunnie implied that if I make something that hooks up to a Chumby (let's assume it's something that requires opening the case & hooks up inside rather than via USB or Wi-Fi), my design has to be "open source" also.

Or else what?

I also don't see how this applies to software.

Suppose I produce software A, a patch to the code flashed in to Chumby that lets it run binaries from a USB, and release the source.  I assume the GPL on the Linux kernel requires this  "mere aggregation" for embedded devices is still unclear.  TiVo got away with putting closed binaries on a hard disc along with GPL code, but in a closed (meaning most users don't pick & choose the software they load) box. I think it's a stretch to apply an exception that originally applied to code collected on a tape mailed from Cambridge.  Linus "glossed" the GPL allowing userland closed bins, but would that hold up?

Next I produce a closed binary B, which runs from a USB stick.  Maybe its a VOIP app and I don't want to share my CODEC source because getting good compression on a 266MHz ARM 9 is hard.  It has to be a binary because teensy Flash doesn't have the power to let me do what I want.

--

My real application is to maybe use Chumby as a UI for devices using cheap, low-bitrate, low-band RF digital networking, so a PC isn't required.  The cheapest way to add the tranceiver is directly to the ARM's bus inside the box rather than as a USB slave, provided there are some headers with the signals I need.  The link to this

http://www.chumby.com/resources/Sensor_ … elease.pdf

from the wiki page implies that that there are, but it's another dead link.

--

Look- these guys sell iPod connectors:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc … cts_id=633

but they have no "Made for iPod" logo (a trademark licensed as part of an agreement).  Maybe there's a patent on the connector and the manufacturer licensed that & the cost is appropriately burdened.

Anyone can buy these and make a thingie that talks serial remote (reverse engineered & available here:

http://ipodlinux.org/Apple_Accessory_Protocol

)  to an iPod.

If the connector is patented, a person could sell a device that requires soldering 30 wires to an iPod.  There's nothing Apple can do to prevent you from opening your device, cutting traces, wiring in extra stuff, probing it with an oscilloscope, whatever.

--

Disclaimer:

My name is Morgan Woodson.  I sent bunnie some email back in the xbox days about Sony v. Connectix & other reverse-engineering case law & I met him at the Maker Faire.  I am a fan & I'm looking forward to getting a Chumby because a Gumstix just sits in a shoebox if you can't find the time to hack it, but a Chumby is fun even without the hacking.  I'm also a coder in the iPod group at Apple (thus no hacking time).  I am not a lawyer and http://williampatry.blogspot.com/ demonstrates why amateur lawyering on IP issues is a bit silly-- it's always way more complicated that you could imaging.  However, I want to know what Chumby is up to.

{the Apple disclosure is just that, not any kind of endorsement, implied or expressed}

As far as the "broken links" are concerned, please let me know where those came from.

The links on the devhardware page on the website seem to be correctly pointing to files.chumby.com, which is where these files are actually hosted.

I'll ping Steve Tomlin to address the license issues you've brought up.  He's on his way back from a business trip.

The links came from http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index. … for_chumby

If they had worked, they would have allowed access to schematics without agreeing to the HDK, which I'm not about to do.  The "no derivative works unless you agree" for *hardware* is unprecedented, and the thing you have to agree to is "license licensee."

I understand that it doesn't make sense to compare Palm, who benefits from accessories because they make Palm's device more attractive and they're making their money on hardware, to Chumby, selling the hardware for a slim margin & making money on the service, but you've cut off a whole bunch of applications that wouldn't compete with the Chumby service.

What about turning on my hot tub from work so by the time I get home, it's hot?  Chumby is the controller, tracking water and ambient air temperatures and providing a local UI through the LCD/touchpanel.  Nope- can't connect through the internet.

-M

Here's the link to my blog post describing the new license:

http://chumby.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/ … more-open/

or go directly here to see the license in full:

http://www.chumby.com/developers/developer

Sorry that I wasn't able to post this until now.