A look at CERN's promising open hardware license

Open Source software reaches new heights with each passing year, but hardware has yet to be given the same treatment. Fact is, open hardware is as important as open source software. A number of the issues facing open source software and operating systems is due to lack to drivers or proprietary drivers for proprietary hardware. It is only with both open hardware and open software that a platform can truly be considered open.

CERN, the organization behind the Large Hadron Collider, has released the Open Hardware Licence, which aims to bring the benefits of open development hardware designs. It aims to be the GPL of hardware designs, although not in the sense that it gives the same rights, since hardware and software are very different things. The similarity is in principle only, as both licenses allow one to see the source / design, modify it and share it. Like the GPL, modifications too have to be under the same licence, thus perpetuating the open nature of the hardware...