CERN Open Hardware Licence - Introduction

Myriam Ayass, legal adviser of the Knowledge and Technology Transfer Group at CERN and author of the CERN OHL:

The CERN–OHL is to hardware what the free and open-source licences are to software. It defines the conditions under which a licensee will be able to use or modify the licensed material. It shares the same principles as free software or open-source software: anyone should be able to see the source – the design documentation in the case of hardware – study it, modify it and share it.

The CERN Open Hardware Licence was originally written for CERN designs hosted in the Open Hardware Repository. It can also be used by any designer wishing to share design information using a licence compliant with the OSHW definition criteria. If you would like to contribute to make it better, please subscribe to the Discourse forum and submit any issue you may have.

CERN Open Hardware Licence v2

• CERN OHL version 2. Contains the licence texts for the three variants and a rationale document to explain the decisions we took while drafting them.
• CERN Open Hardware Licence V2, an introduction. 40 minute recording of CH Open Business Event (1/12/2020)

Older versions of the licence

• CERN OHL version 1.2. Contains the licence itself and a guide to its usage.
• CERN OHL version 1.1. Contains the licence itself and a guide to its usage.

Misc

• SPDX License List with CERN OHL SPDX identifiers
• Example of usage in the Simple PCIe FMC carrier project.
• Unofficial translations of the CERN OHL
• CERN Knowledge transfer - CERN Open Hardware Licence
• CERN Knowledge transfer - Open Source Software and Hardware (V2.0)
• Frequently Asked Questions

Some CERN OHL Users

• Projects using the CERN Open Hardware Licence

What CERN writes about OHR (the site) and OHL (the licence)

• Open Science at CERN - Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General at EPFL Open Science Day (Oct.2019)
• CERN Brochure: Open Hardware at CERN (pdf, 1MB, March 2015)
• CERN Courier: Hardware joins the open movement (June 2011)
• CERN Bulletin: Open hardware for open science (July 2011)
• CERN Press Release: CERN launches Open Hardware initiative (July 2011)
• CERN Annual Report 2011
  • Message from the President of Council (page 4)
  • Making an impact (page 32)
• CERN updates: CERN releases new version of open hardware licence (September 2013)
• CERN KT: New version of CERN open hardware licence, Version 1.2 of CERN OHL is lighter on the users (September 2013)

See also

• Licences used for CERN Open Hardware designs
• OHR Meta project (about Open Hardware and related subjects; CERN)
• Brief History of Open Source Hardware Organizations and Definitions
• freedomdefined.org
  • OSHW definition criteria
  • Comparison of Licences
• TAPR Open Hardware License (another OH licence; non-CERN)
• Free HDL License (project for licensing Free Software in HDL forms; non-CERN)
• Katz, Andrew (2012) 'Towards a Functional Licence for Open Hardware',
  IFOSS L. Rev., 4(1), pp 41-62, DOI: 10.5033/ifosslr.v4i1.69.
• Software Package Data Exchange, a standard format for communicating the components, licenses and copyrights associated with software packages.
• REUSE Software, Make licensing easy for everyone
• Defensive publications