19. Invention, intellectual property and income¶
LICENSE SELECTION¶
The code is planned to come under the MIT License. That lets pretty much anyone use it, copy it, modify it, or distribute it even for business reasons. You just have to keep the original license text and copyright info right there in the files.
People like students, hobbyists, teachers, and developers can all make use of the documentation and hardware designs. Students and hobbyists might go through the docs to pick up new skills and put together the project just for hands-on practice. Teachers could pull it into their lessons or workshops as teaching material. Developers often take bits of the design or code and adapt them for their own work.
For the doccumentation I am planing to use Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
The license allows you to share and change the work if you: Give credit to the creator. Do not use it for business. Share in the same way—all new works must have the same license. Simply put: you can change and share. But not for money. You must give credit and use the same license.
Full license text: Creative Commons Info:
Distribution¶
I plan to put the whole project out there mostly via a GitHub repo. It is one of the go-to spots for open-source stuff, and it keeps things simple for folks to grab the code along with the hardware files. A blog post or two could break down the project in everyday terms, walk through the steps to build it, and clear up how everything fits together. The documentation folder holds all the step-by-step guides and details for building and coding the thing. Posting about it in online forums and groups draws in more eyes, plus it invites useful comments from others.
There are a few ways to earn money from an open source project. One way is selling DIY kits that come with necessary components, PCBs, and printed instructions. Printing the documentation can be like printed instructions.Setting up a membership system like Patreon offers supporters perks such as early access to updates or behind-the-scenes posts on development. Teaching workshops counts as well, whether you do them online or in person. In those sessions, you show others how to build, solder, program, or tweak the project in various ways.Simple donation setups like GitHub Sponsors or Ko-fi keep things easy. Plenty of people just want to support creators directly without much hassle.