kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Richard A Burton wrote:
> Just another little thought on this (/ spanner in the works). How's 
> the license situation for this? I see the php stuff appears to be GPL, 
> but some of the other stuff in the polygon directory has another 
> custom looking license, and some of the stuff doesn't have any 
> indication of it's license, but the comments at the top suggest it's 
> been borrowed from somewhere else rather than newly written. Is it ok 
> to be mixing all this stuff, then releasing kicad under the GPL. I'm 
> no legal expert, so it may be fine, just asking.
>
> Richard.

I share your concern. Copyright laws do not mysteriously vanish for 
open source developers.

It would be prudent for open source developers:

1) to learn the basics of using other folks code in order to stay out of 
trouble when doing so.

2) who value their work and do not want others to steal it, package it 
into a commercial product and sell it, to learn the basics of copyright law.


There are concerns going both ways: code coming into our project, and 
code going out of our project.

Each piece of source code is either owned by someone (or some group), or 
it is in the public domain. By not tagging each file that is written 
with a description of its owner, it is at risk for being confused with 
public domain code, particularly as it is travels to other projects.

It is code ownership, not public domain status, that is the basis for 
the GPL. 

And yes, each piece of code brought into the project in a way 
inconsistent with the wishes of its owner could put our project at 
unnecessary risk.

Dick