CERN Issues Open Hardware Licence For Electronic Designs

The European Organisaton for Nuclear Research (CERN) today issued an open hardware licence for electronic designs, following its principle of “open science.”

The Open Hardware Licence (OHL) version 1.1 was launched by Geneva-based CERN after the first version was created in March. The licence was created on the Open Hardware Repository defined “by its creators as a place on the web where electronics designers can collaborate on open-hardware designs, much in the philosophy of the movement of open-source software,” according to the CERN.

The OHL “provides a framework for knowledge exchange that reconciles open design principles with traceability with a clear policy for the management of intellectual property,” according to a press release.

Hardware design documentation includes schematic diagrams, designs, circuit or circuit-board layouts, and mechanical drawings. The OHL “was created to govern the use, copying, modification and distribution of hardware design documentation, and the manufacture and distribution of products,” the release said.

According to the licence, CERN “wished to disseminate its hardware designs (…) as widely as possible, and generally to foster collaboration among public research hardware designers.” The OHL is copyright of CERN, says the licence, and anyone can use it, “in unmodified form only, for the distribution of his own Open Hardware designs.”