Hardware as license

About

Hardware as license is short for a principle which might be stated more fully as:

If piece of hardware requires a certain piece of software in order to function as advertised, that software will only work on that hardware, and that software is normally provided with that hardware, then possession of the hardware should be regarded as a license to use the software.

Following this principle, anyone who can make use of the software in question therefore has the right to use it -- so the software may be publicly posted, regardless of license restrictions, since only those with the right to use it will be able to do so.

Exception

It is arguable that the "normally provided with" clause should not be required, as it makes no sense to sell a product which won't work without additional software which you have to purchase separately, but that argument depends more on the principle that hardware should not be held hostage.

Related

This has a lot of overlap with the principle that hardware should not be held hostage, but differs in that it has implications for how the software may be shared rather than how it may be used.

Example

• Copyrighted firmware for a particular scanner series has been posted on HTYP under this principle, so that anyone who has the scanner but has lost their installation discs may still obtain the firmware necessary to activate their scanner.