kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...>]

bifferos wrote:
> --- In kicad-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Dick Hollenbeck <dick@...> wrote:
>
>
> > 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.
>
> Sorry for the intrusion - I am not a developer, however I do feel it
> necessary to point out that there is no requirement to create any
> online repository, and certainly no requirement to make it available
> 'at any moment'. One of the options (from GPL v2) is:
>
> b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
> years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
> cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
> machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
> distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
> customarily used for software interchange; or,
>
> I do hope you sort something out though. I'm sure it will benefit the
> Kicad community.
>
> best regards,
> -biff.

Good point. A lawyer would make that distinction. 

But as a practical matter, if the licensee were to receive weekly 
requests for the source code (from developers here for example), there 
would probably be no distinction. Why would someone here want to spend 
time writing code that he/she was legally entitled to for free 
elsewhere? Time is money.


Dick Hollenbeck
SoftPLC Corporation
http://softplc.com