[Vanhackspace] Proposed change to principles: requiring openness on VHS projects

[Ryan Smith]

Some great discussion so far.

I think we need to make the distinction between personal projects and
group projects. Also I think we need to make a distinction for members
and non-members as well. Members should be free to work on personal
projects in the space, using the infrastructure (wireless, tools,
space) and there would be no expectation that you would be open with
the project. When you start including other members (asking for
advice, gang programming) you need to be clear that what you are doing
is a personal project that you may get some benefit from. This gives
other people the option of saying that they don't wish to be involved
with a personal project.

I think that all other activities in the space should be open. I think
Derek's suggestion of the use of licenses from
http://www.opensource.org/licenses with software is appropriate.
Groups should be free to choose the license they wish within those
constraints. Projects should also be open in the sense that anyone can
become involved with them. Hardware I would like to see covered by
some sort of Open Hardware License, but I'm not too familiar with this
side of it. Oblig wiki link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_hardware

One thing that personally I have strong feelings about and may be
contentious is that non-members should not be working on personal
_hardware_ projects at the space and have to be clear if they are
working on personal _software_ projects when working with other
people. Currently this has little implication, but when we have more
tools in the space I think there needs to be a distinction.
Non-members should be encouraged to attend VHS, contribute to group
projects, learn how to use the tools and become involved with the
group. I don't think non-members should be using physical
infrastructure for personal hardware projects. I think this is as much
a philosophical issue as it is a liability and safety issue.

Ryan


On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Richard Sim<richard.a.sim at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm the one who brought this up in the IRC channel several weeks back when I
> was looking into joining VHS.
> What defines "VHS infrastructure"? Does that differ significantly from
> "anything developed at the space"? While I understand your point about what
> could come down to problems with people making money off of VHS's servers,
> but what about everything else? My primary concern when bringing it up
> initially was about what if I worked on a private electronics project at
> VHS, and how do the VHS principles force my hand as to what I do with the
> project. I'm talking about doing some soldering, using a scope, printing a
> circuit board to etch, using the wireless, and so on at VHS. All that to me
> is "VHS infrastructure", but I don't think it's the intention of the VHS
> principles to mandate that I'd have to open-source the project (nor the
> intention of the proposed principle changes, but the wording still makes it
> seem that it does).
>
> -Richard
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Derek Anderson
> <derek at chargedmultimedia.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think that we are going to have to allow alternative licenses to the
>> GPL. Not all "OPEN" licenses are compatible with the GPL, which may restrict
>> our source libraries on projects (ie: what if we want to use Sun or AGPL
>> licensed code).
>>
>> http://www.opensource.org/licenses has a list of all the OSI approved
>> licenses, and I propose we accept any of those.
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Jeff Davis <jeff at textsfornothing.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Our principles[*] currently say that VHS is a "GPL/Creative Commons"
>>> space and require that anything developed at the space be released under
>>> the GPL or a Creative Commons license.  This came up at tonight's
>>> infrastructure meeting, and it was proposed that we change this to say
>>> that VHS group projects and projects using VHS infrastructure must be
>>> "open," in two senses:
>>>
>>> (1) Anyone can participate.
>>> (2) The project must be released under a free/open source license (not
>>> necessarily the GPL).
>>>
>>> This would mean that if you are running a project on our servers, or
>>> doing substantial development work on it using our servers, you'd need
>>> to release your code under an open license.  If you're just working on
>>> something on your laptop, no such expectation would exist.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>> [*]: http://vancouver.hackspace.ca/doku.php?id=principles
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Vanhackspace mailing list
>>> Vanhackspace at lists.uselessdegree.net
>>>
>>> http://lists.uselessdegree.net/listinfo.cgi/vanhackspace-uselessdegree.net
>>
>>
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>
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