An exploration of innovation in open licensing for robotics

Summary form only given. Mainstream adoption of an open development and distribution model could accelerate innovation in robotics through harnessing end-user creativity and contribution. Open architecture promotes innovation by permitting downstream developers and users to modify the underlying technology and to deploy it in operating environments beyond those envisioned by upstream developers. However, granting such broad permissions to downstream parties may be problematic to upstream developers from a legal and ethical perspective.