Hi Maddog, >> it certainly sounds like an amazing opportunity, almost too good to be true >> - what's the catch! :-) >> > I hope that you will find there is no "catch". If you do think there is > a "catch", please tell me. >
Thanks again for bringing this to us, and the detailed responses. I think this is a very positive opportunity, and I hope we are on track to the university being in a position to help out with our little projects. I think Werner is trying to catch up with Dr Zuffo - which in my mind would be a very good thing to happen as Werner is definitely the point man for the gta02-core effort. > I certainly see the university as "sponsors" of the project, in the fact > that it does cost money to run such an SMT line, to do some of the legal > work, etc. I would like to find a way to help compensate them for this > work, to make the project truly self-sustaining. Dr. Zuffo and I have > discussed government grants and other funding ideas. Please see below. > <snip> > In order to fund the Openmoko project, I would like to suggest that > *all* the things that Openmoko made "open" *up to this time*: > > o circuit design > o case design > o circuit board layout > o testing issues. > o plans for future, etc. > > be completely open and published as before. > > But (for example) the "gerbers" be licensed with a small royalty (1-2 > dollars per phone, with a cap of 500,000 to 1,000,000 USD) only if the > party will make *over* 5,000-10,000 phones There are obviously some significant costs associated with developing hardware that while HW development took place inside openmoko, were met by Sean etal. You rightly point out that if we're to be successful we'll need to find ways to meet those costs. I'd very much like to hear others thoughts on the matter, but from my point of view (and this may be wishful thinking), if there are opportunities to fund this work through grants or corporate donations, I think this would be preferable to licensing the end results (i.e. the gerbers) for production. In my mind, licensing the gerbers for production introduces restrictions on the uses that a recipient may put those designs too - including their ability to modify & redistribute those files. My preference would be to encourage that redistribution, through Share-Alike / GPL style licensing of all assets. If a manufacturer wants to adopt the design to a new case, add extra buttons, changes components or invests additional resources in increasing production yields, the rational for sharing that investment with other licenses is less concrete. Some potential sources for funding might be: - phone fabs that would otherwise need to spend significantly more money either developing their own designs or buying someone else's design - government grants to seed phone production industries, or promote telephony freedom - universities or other research organisations that can use our devices as a platform for learning or their own development. If gerber licensing is believed to be the only realistic way to generate the investment needed for prototype runs etc., I think there would be benefit in any such ownership and licensing being conducted through a legal vehicle independent of any one individual or organisation (I don't know if LSITEC fits this description or not). Doing so would encourage the involvement of multiple organisations, universities or individuals, and would allow the team to select the most economic or timely method for purchasing or prototype production - through one of our partners or external commercial parties if they're able to deliver more effectively. I don't want my comments to be taken negatively, I think LSI-USP has fantastic potential for helping these projects, ensuring the longterm viability of our dream and filling in some of the gaps that are apparent in our efforts to-date. I think you're spot on that universities could be excellent partners with many shared objectives in what we're trying to achieve. Can we do this without resorting to paid licensing of any of our assets? I see a scenario where we, with USP, are in a position to generate designs that they could take into small scale production (similar to OM), selling those handsets to the community at small scale profits, using the process for the benefit of their students and generating a platform for them to grow in the future - while maintaining the SA style licensing. If it's achievable, this seems the ideal outcome to me. </$0.02> All the best, Dave _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community