Free Hardware

RichardStallman -- On "Free Hardware"

Jun 22, 1999, 04 :27 UTC

By Richard Stallman GNU

A number of people have asked the GNU Project if we would like tobranch out from free software into free hardware designs, andexpressed their interest in working on them. Some people have evensuggested a project to make free chip designs.

To understand this issue clearly, recall that ``free software'' isa matter of freedom, not price; broadly speaking, it means thatusers are free to copy and modify the software. So if we try toapply the same concept to hardware, ``free hardware'' meanshardware
that users are free to copy and modify; a ``free hardwaredesign'' means a design that users are free to copy, modify, andconvert into hardware.

Free software is often available for zero price, since it oftencosts you nothing to make your own copy. Thus the tendency toconfuse ``free'' with ``gratis''. For hardware, the differencebetween ``free'' and ``gratis'' is more clear-cut; you can'tdownload hardware
through the net, and we don't have automaticcopiers for hardware. (Maybe nanotechnology will provide thatcapability.) So you must expect that making fresh a copy of somehardware will cost you, even if the hardware or design is free. Theparts will cost money,
and only a very good friend is likely tomake circuit boards or solder wires and chips for you as afavor.

Because copying hardware is so hard, the question of whether we'reallowed to do it is not vitally important. I see no socialimperative for free hardware designs like the imperative for freesoftware. Freedom to copy software is an important right because itis
easy now--any computer user can do it. Freedom to copy hardwareis not as important, because copying hardware is hard to do.Present-day chip and board fabrication technology resembles theprinting press. Copying hardware is as difficult as copying bookswas in
the age of the printing press, or more so. So the ethicalissue of copying hardware is more like the ethical issue of copyingbooks 50 years ago, than like the issue of copying softwaretoday.

However, a number of hardware ethusiasts are interested indeveloping free hardware designs, either because they have fundesigning hardware, or because they want to customize. If you wantto work on this, it is a fine thing to do. The GNU volunteercoordinators
(gvc@gnu.org) can put you in touch with other peoplewho share this interest. If organizations are formed for thispurpose, the GNU Project will refer interested people tothem.

People often ask about the possibility of using the GNU GPL or someother kind of copyleft for hardware designs.

Firmware such as programs for programmable logic devices ormicrocoded machines are software, and can be copylefted like anyother software. For actual circuits, though, the matter is morecomplex.

Circuits cannot be copylefted because they cannot be copyrighted.Definitions of circuits written in HDL (hardware definitionlanguages) can be copylefted, but the copyleft covers only theexpression of the definition, not the circuit itself. Likewise, adrawing
or layout of a circuit can be copylefted, but this onlycovers the drawing or layout, not the circuit itself. What thismeans is that anyone can legally draw the same circuit topology ina different-looking way, or write a different HDL definition whichproduces
the same circuit. Thus, the strength of copyleft whenapplied to circuits is limited. However, copylefting HDLdefinitions and printed circuit layouts may do some goodnonetheless.

It is probably not possible to use patents for this purpose either.Patents do not work like copyrights, and they are very expensive toobtain.

Whether or not a hardware device's internal design is free, it isabsolutely vital for its interface specifications to be free. Wecan't write free software to run the hardware without knowing howto operate it. (Selling a piece of hardware, and refusing to tellthe
customer how to use it, strikes me as unconscionable.) But thatis another issue.

Copyright 1999 Richard Stallman

Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article ispermitted provided this notice is preserved.

    RichardStallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation, the authorof the GNU General Public License (GPL), and the original developerof such notable software as gcc and Emacs.