kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

Here is a mail i received:
> /Hello Jean-Pierre,
> We are quite impressed with Kicad software. Congratulations and many
> thanks for creating this tool.
> We are a PCB design and manufacuting company: please see our website:
> www.protoexpress.com <http://www.protoexpress.com/> .
> We would like to use Kicad engine ( sourcecode) in a PCB design
> workbench that we plan to customize for our manufacturing facility and
> available on our website for general PCB designers.
>
> We would like to know that it is OK with you.
> Let us know your views.
>
> Thanks and best regards
> Atar Mittal
> Sierra Proto Express
> PCB Design Express Division
> 1098 West Evelyn Avenue
> Sunnyvale, CA 94086
> Tel: 408-731-2550
> /
>
> This is not the first request.
> Until now my answer was:
> Kicad is under GPL license. You can use the code source as long as you 
> comply with the GPL license.
> But now some (many ?) pieces of codes are written by active contributors.
> So i need yours thoughts about this.
> Of course this message is for active contributors.
>
> --
>
> Jean-Pierre CHARRAS

Jean-Pierre,

SoftPLC Corp has contributed over 7,000 lines of code just *in the last 
month alone*. Previous to that, it has contributed many many hundreds 
of lines of code, concepts, and project direction. So SoftPLC Corp. is 
clearly a significant owner in this code. We normally bill customers 
at $75 to $200 per hour. So by any measure the company has invested 
many many tens of thousands of dollars into the project.


Maybe in return, one of the things that Sierra could do for SoftPLC 
Corporation is to make prototype boards at no cost?


In any case, the moment Sierra were to *distribute* any code, it trips 
the provision in the GPL which says they MUST make the [modified] source 
code available. Therefore, the next decision is how do they plan to do 
that? And why should that differ from them simply sharing our 
repository and making those changes available there? This last 
question is not rhetorical, it is a serious question.


They can also fund changes they want and let us do them on contract. 
If a programmer gets paid somewhere, it might as well be one that is 
familiar with the code.


I am *really getting raw* about working for free on this thing, and I do 
not want somebody to walk off into the sunset with the fruit of our labor.

So to summarize, they can:

1) honor the GPL, and contribute their new code to our repository, 
either in trunk or a branch.

2) honor the GPL, and do a fork, creating their own online repository 
where all the new code can be available at any moment.

3) honor the GPL, and hire us to do the work.

4) honor the GPL, and pay us in free boards for support and future 
enhancements.


Once a piece of software is GPL'ed, I suppose it can be forked by its 
owners (only), to a non-GPL-ed status. But as that ownership is 
fragmented, this becomes increasingly difficult to pull off legally 
without offending a dissenting owner. Therefore you would need 
unanimous agreement among all owners. So I don't list any options 
beyond 1) to 4) above. That does not mean I have thought of everything 
however.


Dick Hollenbeck
SoftPLC Corporation
http://softplc.com