[Cryptech Core] Hardware license again

[Phil Roberts]

On 1/24/19, 9:06 AM, "Rob Austein" <sra at hactrn.net> wrote:

    One of the several reasons we originally chose the BSD license is that
    it's short and simple enough for a normal human being to understand.
    I'm extremely reluctant to switch to something more complicated.
    
    As far as I can tell from your message, the real issue is that your
    lawyer is worried about patents.  I think you need to make the case
    for why patents should be the Cryptech Project's problem (as opposed
    to, say, Diamond Key's problem -- no offense, but Diamond Key
    suggesting that the Cryptech Project needs to get involved in patents
    to protect Diamond Key reads a bit like "let's you and him fight").
  

>>>>

Hi,

While I agree that simplicity of understanding BSD is a virtue, and it has others, it doesn't change the fact that for hardware, BSD simply doesn't apply.  Having the BSD license on the design files would allow us to make a copy of the design files to publish on our website for example, but it really doesn't grant us a license to build hardware based on those design files.  I kind of buried that in a bunch of other stuff, so maybe I should have just said that to begin with ("In fact, while a copyright license (BSD) covers software, that makes sense, because software is protected by copyright, however, hardware is not subject to copyright, so the BSD license would not work for hardware.").

When speaking to operators of DNS infrastructure, just as one application case, they don't have the resources to build their own HSM based on reference designs, they need a commercial vendor to build it and support it.  For a substantial commercial deployment, we'll need a license to build the hardware.  When we started the discussions with our counsel we were explicit to pass on that the goal of CrypTech is to offer both hardware and software in  the most permissive manner possible for use by third parties.  So while I'm speaking for Diamond Key when I say that we need a license to build the hardware, we expect other vendors will receive similar counsel and will also need a license.

Regards,
Phil