Gilberti Industries

It has been a long time since my last post. Too long, in fact. Relatively recent events, however, have inspired me to make a post.

The end user licence agreement, or EULA: they are everywhere. It is that insidious piece of paper that you find packed with a new appliance or in the instruction manual for a new piece of software. If it is part of an online service, you often have to click a button that says “I agree to the terms listed above” or similar before you can use said service. I am not a real fan of these presumably legally-binding documents for a couple reasons. Firstly, the idea that in opening the box and using the product is effectively the same as signing and submitting a legal document in the case of physical appliances rubs me the wrong way. The idea that you don’t own the technology within the appliance despite the fact that you payed for it also has me ticked off. If I own an appliance, I should be able to do whatever I want to do with it so long as I don’t deny the company that made it profit by redistributing the design. Mostly, however, I’m displeased with some of the changes in EULAs that we videogame players are starting to see. For instance, the new EA Games online storefront and content delivery system called Origin has two worrying clauses:

Section 2: Consent to Collection and Use of Data, states that upon installing and using Origin, you give EA the right to probe your computer, determine computer specifications including currently and previously installed software, and send said information back to EA, where it can be used for whatever they want. Don’t feel like sharing your computer’s contents? I don’t blame you, but EA does not give an opt out. The only way to not have your computer scanned is to not install Origin, and if you like EA games (they have a few good ones) you have no alternative.

Section 20: Dispute Resolution by Binding Arbitration is perhaps even more worry some. It states that you cannot take part in a class action lawsuit against EA. You also forfeit your right to a trial-by-jury single plaintiff lawsuit. You can only seek compensation for damages via arbitration, in which plaintiff and defendant are heard by a judge or other 3rd party who ultimately decides who is at fault, who pays for the damage, and how much.

While for the vast majority of people this will be of little consequence as they will use Origin or other services with very similar terms of service without need to sue or hide anything, it is the principle of the thing. It just seems wrong that a corporation can make you sign away your rights with a single click of the mouse. This is why I would like to propose the Gilberti Industries EULA: an informal note full of legal suggestions that make it perfectly clear that I’m not in the business of selling things that strip people of their rights, but rather empower them to act creatively.

Gilberti Industries End User Licence Agreement
October 7, 2011

Dear Sir or Madam,

In response to other technology and media companies imposing terms of service clauses upon their customers that I personally find ridiculous, I have created my own that I find, and I hope you will also find, much more agreeable.

1. Right of Ownership: you bought it, so it is yours. Decorate it, hack it, improve it, throw it off a cliff, I don’t really care. I will not sue you for “misusing” my designs or for redistributing the source code. To be perfectly honest, the more who see the source the better. By the same consequence, however, since the device is yours wholesale, and because it was most likely built to be modified or hacked anyway, you are ultimately responsible for any damage it may do. If it does do damage by fault of my own design, please don’t call the lawyers first. Call me. We can work something out without getting the guys in expensive suits involved.

2. Open Source Licence Agreement: because this device is open source, you are encouraged to share your own improvements. Did you make it faster, cheaper, more efficient, or better for the environment? Did you use the device as part of a larger machine that does something neat? Did you discover a way the device should not be used? Please share. If you make improvements, it is highly encouraged that you publish the revised design under the same licence as the one used for the original device. Technology only gets better when we are willing to share our knowledge. Heck, everything getting better is dependent on sharing information.

3. Refusal of Terms: this is not a legally binding document. You can refuse it in part or in whole without sending me a notice or refusing to use the product it came with. It is merely a set of suggestions. An agreement made over a handshake, if you will. You can sue me, yes. I’d rather you didn’t, but I’m not taking away your right to. I’m just asking, as a fellow human being and fellow lover of open source technology and maker culture that you contact me first if you have any problems so that we can settle it person to person. As far as I’m concerned, as soon as lawyers need to be hired, everyone loses.

I hope that you find the above non-legally binding terms agreeable. If you don’t, however, or if you think they can be improved in any way, please send me an email at anthony@gilberti-industries.com. I may not reply right away, if ever, but I can guarantee that I will read your email and take your suggestions under serious consideration.

Happy Hacking!
Anthony Gilberti
Gilberti Industries

My plan is to include a copy with every device I ship, and trust me, I do have a couple ideas for future projects in mind. What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea? Suggestions on more clauses? Like I said above, I am all ears.

For those of you who are totally out of the DIY electronics scene, the guys of the Arduino Team have just released a new version of the Arduino microcontroller called the Uno.  The Uno’s main claim to fame over its predecessor, the Duemilanove, is the new USB to serial chip used for programming and communicating with the Arduino’s ATMega328.  The Duemilanove, its predecessors, and the many and varied Arduino clones, all used the FTDI USB to serial chip for programming and communications between the computer and the microcontroller.  About the only thing the FTDI had going for it was its ease of implementation and its free drivers.  The new Uno instead uses a small Atmel microcontroller with built-in USB capabilities to serve as a translator between USB and serial.  That chip, the ATMega8U2, is causing a lot of buzz amongst the Arduino crowd because it, like the ATMega328 it programs, is programmable itself.  By shorting out a jumper on the bottom of the board, the user can program the ATMega8U2 to act as a completely different USB device.  The Arduino can now communicate with a host computer in new and exciting ways, able to emmulate a mouse or keyboard, or able to act as a MIDI device.  This opens up new possibilities for Arduino projects, like random password generators or musical instrunments, with a much lower investment and smaller bill of materials.  The fact that the ATMega8U2 requires no drivers and supports faster serial speeds than the FTDI is just icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, as pointed out on the Arduino forums, manufacturers of Arduino clones will have some difficulty in implementing the new ATMega8U2.  Universal Serial Bus, or USB, utilizes a device identification scheme that relies on two six digit hexadecimal numbers, a vendor ID (VID) and a product ID (PID), to identify the device in question.  The VID identifies the manufacturer of the device, the PID identifies the device type, and a manufacturer’s serial number identifies the instance of the device, so that if multiple devices of the same type are plugged in, the computer can tell the difference between them.  Each unique VID comes with a little over 56,000 PIDs.  The problem is that VIDs are not cheap.  VID numbers are assigned by the USB Implementers Forum, or USB-IF, a non-profit organization made up mostly of the original developers of the USB standard.  They are responsible for the assignment of VIDs.  They don’t just give away VIDs to everyone who asks.  A single VID costs about $2,000 (that does not include licensing fees) and are only sold to legitimate corporations, not individuals or groups of individuals.  This means that for garage salesmen like myself, the cost of developing and selling USB hardware is prohibitively high.  Since the majority of Arduino clones are built by fellow garage salesmen, these clones are unlikely to ever benefit from the use of the ATMega8U2.

Does this bother me?  A little.  It means that my idea to build and sell a new serial adapter based on the ATMega8U2 for Arduino clones that lack the USB to serial chip, like Sparkfun’s Arduino Pro or Modern Device’s Really Bare Bones Board, is very much impossible at this time.  However, I can still build such a device for my own personal use and distribute the source material freely.  I could easily use the Arduino Team’s VID and the Arduino Uno PID to ensure compatibility, and so long as I made no attempt to mass produce my design, nobody would mind.  This only really affects the end user who may not be savvy enough to build and program their own adapter.  Even then, it is only a matter of time for Sparkfun or another semi-large do-it-yourself electronics company to buy a VID and get to producing these new adapters.

So, about those worry warts out on the Arduino forum that say this move is making the Arduino more closed than open: horse hockey.  The design remains as open as ever, and you are free to do as you will.  The only difference now is that it is a little more difficult to sell one particular part of the new Arduino design.  If you have a great product idea that implements the Uno’s ATMega8U2, but don’t have the cash to buy a VID, partner up with another open-source company that already has one.