Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [licensing]

For questions about licensing electronics or designing electronics with components that require a license.

For questions about licensing electronics or designing electronics with components that require a license.

24 questions
28
votes
4 answers

Best licenses for Open Hardware

Can anyone give me a rundown of the various licenses that are well-suited to open hardware? I've designed a few circuit boards and would like to make them available for others to use, so I need to choose a license for them. Things I'm concerned…
edebill
  • 2,509
  • 2
  • 20
  • 26
15
votes
3 answers

CAN Bus Licensing

Looking around for possible solutions for long distance communication between multiple microcontrollers I found the CAN bus. However, it says that there is a licensing fee for any implementation of the CAN protocol. My plan is to use a…
ihenn
  • 153
  • 1
  • 4
14
votes
6 answers

Legality of Reverse Engineering

If there was a "law/legal" stack exchange site I'd post it there, but it's in its infant stages in Area 51. I'm a musician and an electrical engineering student. I've designed a modification to the pickup system of my acoustic/electric guitar that I…
Andrew
  • 410
  • 3
  • 7
11
votes
4 answers

How do I detect open-source licence violations by companies?

Let's say I have an open source project with a license that prohibits commercial uses. Then comes along a commercial product with striking similarities in functionality/hardware. How would I go about inspecting the commercial product to see if…
stbtra
  • 2,346
  • 3
  • 21
  • 28
10
votes
2 answers

Are reference designs assumed to be license free?

Can I use a reference design from a data sheet in a commercial product without attribution/licensing of any sort?
stbtra
  • 2,346
  • 3
  • 21
  • 28
7
votes
1 answer

Texas Instruments Compiler

I am working with TI's CC2533 SoC Low Power RF I bought a few chips and assembled a few PCBs.. Using TI's debugger I confirmed that I can send and receive packets using the basic RF using the RFStudio. Something I have not realised is that TI does…
Piotr Kula
  • 2,134
  • 4
  • 21
  • 44
6
votes
1 answer

Do I need a license to use a USB-A plug on my power cable?

I want to make a product that has a power cable with a USB-A plug on it. There is no USB socket on the device, the cable just enters the device, similar to the HomePod mini. The idea is to instruct users in the user manual and on the website to "use…
Konstantin Schubert
  • 217
  • 1
  • 6
6
votes
1 answer

License dilemma Texas Instruments Code Composer v5 for Stellaris vs MSP430

As I read the screenshot below, I have to pick the license for Texas Instruments' Code Composer Studio v5 as follows: option 4: to use with a LaunchPad MSP430 option 3: to use with a LaunchPad Stellaris But I want to use CCSv5 for both Stellaris…
jippie
  • 33,033
  • 16
  • 93
  • 160
6
votes
1 answer

Minimal redistributable coregen output for command-line rebuilds

I'm building an SoC with my own soft-core, and I want people to be able to easily rebuild it using Xilinx webpack command-line tools. I'm using coregen's Clock Wizard to create a clock module, but coregen's output doesn't appear to be…
AnthonyGreen
  • 163
  • 6
6
votes
6 answers

Creative Commons for physical objects?

Does anyone know if it is possible to file physical objects under creative commons or something similar? I don't want to make money off anything I make, I want to show the public how to make it and if someone uses one of my creations for a not for…
aaronalai
  • 209
  • 1
  • 4
5
votes
1 answer

SD Card 4-bit Mode License

The Micro (STM23F4xx) I'm using happens to include a SDIO peripheral that is supposed to support the 4-bit parallel bus SD Card protocol. I'm aware that the SD Association holds patents on the protocol and requires a fee for using it. I'm wondering…
Arne
  • 1,805
  • 3
  • 27
  • 43
5
votes
1 answer

How appropriate are the open source licences currently in use for inclusion of HDL cores in a commercial product?

HDL IP cores targeted towards ASICs, FPGAs or both are often very useful for adding functionality to a project quickly. Commercially licences cores are available from many sources for a range of prices, but increasingly "open source" cores are…
Xcodo
  • 771
  • 4
  • 18
4
votes
3 answers

Do I need a license to design IP cores with AXI interfaces?

Many IP cores especially from Xilinx have an AXI interface from ARM. (AXI, AXI-Lite, AXI-Stream, APB, ... are parts of AMBA - ARM's bus architecture). The AXI interface standard is free for download (after registration), but I don't think it's free…
Paebbels
  • 3,897
  • 2
  • 18
  • 43
3
votes
1 answer

Can anyone make a device that uses pcie?

As the title suggests, can anyone make a custom board that connects via a pcie connector? Do you need to purchase the rights/license to use it or is it all open to the public? For example my use cases would be communicating with an fpga that's on…
Drok_
  • 33
  • 4
1
vote
1 answer

PMBus licensing

I have just (20 mins ago) started looking at the possibility of using PMBus in future products and have come across the PowerOne licensing issue (referenced by electronicdesign.com), but also other info that says the bus is an open technology... I…
Toby
  • 825
  • 1
  • 8
  • 16
1
2