Having discussed several options for months, we have reached the following principles regarding the licensing of our technology:

All software for our Pulu robot platform is free open source under the GNU General Public License version 2. This includes all the firmware.

We do not require contributors to transmit their copyrights to us to be included in our source code tree. We want to be fair, keep the project open source forever, and avoid "political" forking.

For industrial customers wanting closed solutions, we can always dual license code made by us (under our copyright), and we will also make closed custom solutions (for example, a certain application attached to our open platform) if we see these deals benefit the project in the long run. These projects should, then, advance our open platform, as well.

What we are going to do with hardware, is not exactly clear yet. We have decided not to hinder any software development, so publishing schematics, mechanical drawings, etc. is given - this is widely called "open hardware" today. But whether we are going to fulfill the actual definition of open source hardware, meaning opening all our CAD files, etc., is something we haven't decided.

Instead of patenting everything we can to hinder evolution, we are going to publish technical whitepapers, discussing our solutions openly.

Feedback on these decisions will be appreciated. Do you disagree? Tell us what you think will be best for the development of accessible robotics.