Downloads
Click here to download OSGV Open Design License Agreement Version 0.1 (Preliminary), dated Aug 8th, 2006, in PDF format. Please click here to post your comments

Preamble

(Draft 0.2 is in work. All existing technical data placed under license version 0.1 will be converted to 0.2 automatically)

The SSM’s Open Source Green Vehicle (OSGV) Project is created to accelerate the commercialization of advanced fuel-saving technologies, without compromising the intellectual property rights of part developers and manufacturers.

Managing intellectual properties in an open-source/open-design manner has always been a challenge. Manufacturing of physical products generally requires huge amounts of capital investment in tooling and logistics.

This spirit of this Open Design License Agreement (“License Agreement”) is to promote open-design methodology by protecting the freedom of the public to examine, distribute and improve product designs, all with the aim to protect public interests while attracting private investments.

The interfaces between public-domain and proprietary components are tightly controlled by this License Agreement, which is necessary to preserve the commercial values of such intellectual properties.

For each interface between two components, (whether mechanical, electrical, hardware/software or machine/human), a source control, specification control or interface control document will be generated to define the necessary interface requirements (mechanical, electrical, software, etc.). Interface definitions will be disclosed into the public, while the ownership will be maintained by SSM. The private entity who is designing to this interface specification is thus NOT required to release the design details of the proprietary part.

On the other hand, if the design of a proprietary part requires modifications of existing interface specification (therefore, modifying the design of an SSM-OSGV part), the private entity is required to unconditionally disclose and assign all rights to the updated interface specification to SSM-OSGV.

Furthermore, to incorporate SSM-OSGV components into a higher level non-OSGV assembly (e.g. using OSGV components in a proprietary vehicle design), a Production License is required, in addition to this License Agreement, which is out of the scope of this License Agreement. In such case, the proprietary design of the vehicle must be certified to ensure the purpose of the end-products aligns with the Mission of SSM. The vehicle design must also be certified to comply with safety regulations (e.g. FMVSS) of the country in which the end-products will be sold and/or used.

Portions of this License Agreement were adapted from the GNU General Public License by Free Software Foundation.

For the complete terms and conditions, please download the PDF on the top of this page.