ITead's OpenPCB Service - An alarming report - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Jon Chandler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 12:47:31 pm
content: I am an extremely satisfied customer of ITead Studio's incredibly low cost PCB service, and I'm intrigued by their OpenPCB deal - if you order 10 boards at the normal price, for additional 10 cents you can get two additional boards...of someone else's design. A dime isn't much risk, and you may get something interesting and useful.It is my understanding that you'd have to agree to be a participant in the deal to allow your boards to be shared with someone else.So I was a bit shocked just now to findthis comment.QuoteSomeone was happy that they received one of my demo PCB boards as part of the OpenPCB deal. The shocking part is that these boards were ordered and deliveredbeforethe OpenPCB service was announced, and I didn't agree to be part of the OpenPCB project! I did not give permission to share my board with anybody.Admittedly, the board is marked with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license, but I don't think that gives the fab house any right to give it away. I'm not too happy about this and it raises concerns about having boards made by ITead that I may not want others to have.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 01:07:25 pm
content: Quote from: Jon Chandler on June 28, 2011, 12:47:31 pmWhy not? Is you concern that this doesn't count as "non-commerical" use, or would you feel the same way if it were public domain / CC0 / CC-BY-SA licensed such that commercial use was allowed?

author: deephaven
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 01:21:28 pm
content: I would be very concerned if one of my commercial boards got delivered to someone else due to the fact that my boards are subject to an exclusivity arrangement between myself and my clients.I assume you have emailed ITead about this, so it will be interesting to seetheir response.

author: Jon Chandler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 01:24:23 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on June 28, 2011, 01:07:25 pmIt shouldn't be the fab house's decision to distribute my board without my permission no matter how it's marked or licensed. I didn't agree to be a part of their OpenPCB service. It's more an issue to me of how my intellectual property was handled. Even if I have a stack of boards with a CC license, it's up to me when or if I actually release them to the public.

author: ivan747
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 01:33:58 pm
content: This is specially a killer for simple but clever projects. When you discover what the circuit does is super easy to reimplement that in other ways.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 01:48:47 pm
content: Quote from: Jon Chandler on June 28, 2011, 01:24:23 pmI guess that it depends on whether sending them the gerbers with the license attribution constitutes 'distributing' it to them. I wouldn't send design files anywhere with a license indication I didn't intend to abide by, but I can see your point. Unless there was a separate indication that you were releasing the board under that license (like you were participating in a pooling service specifically restricted for open hardware use) they shouldn't be interpreting the markings on the board as an authorization to redistribute them. I was thinking only that if they could just as easily have downloaded the gerbers from your website and produced the boards to give away, I don't see a difference that they happen to have manufactured the boards already.

author: Alexx
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2011, 02:16:06 pm
content: @Jon ChandlerWe have received your mail, and now we are investigating why your board will be sent out - We just keep the boards which both choose the OPEN PCB service in order, or all 10 boards will all be shipped out to client, also we will not keep your gerber for more than 2 week.I have reply you and you can help us find why this issue happen.Now we have shipped out about 80 types OPEN PCBs and you are the only one now we meet who didn't give the promises but the design be resent to others. We will find out the reason and it will help to prevent this kind of thing happening again.RegardsAlex

author: Jon Chandler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2011, 06:42:53 am
content: Alex has investigated what happened and I believe it was an honest, well-intentioned mistake. Here is his reply to me:QuoteI have asked Alex not to destroy the boards and to put the remainder in the OpenPCB program. Furthermore, ITead has my permission to sell these boards on its web site.Thank you Alex for investigating this, the prompt reply and taking measures to ensure that boards are not improperly made available to others.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2011, 11:22:03 am
content: Quote from: Jon Chandler on June 28, 2011, 12:47:31 pmI can understand your shock and disappointment in this.I think technically they may have had every right to do that, but NOT until you have actually released the board publicly (which I doubt they checked, but beside the point).If you have released it publicly then they have every right to distribute the board.But up until that point, you still payed them for a private service, which are always deemed to be commercial-in-confidence. In which case they should have kept your files private.They probably just made an enthusiastic mistake because of the CC mark.Dave.