The Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) organization is sponsoring a new open-source license intended for hardware components. Authored by lawyer John Ackermann, the Open Hardware License (OHL) is a share-alike license that developers can apply to documentation and schematics associated with hardware projects. The license stipulates that those who distribute products based on OHL-licensed hardware specifications may not file patent infringement lawsuits against others who use the same hardware specifications. The license also requires that developers post additional specifications to a centralized archive when they make a derivative of an OHL-licensed product.
TAPR introduces open-source hardware license, OSI skeptical.