kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Heiko Rosemann <heiko.rosemann@xxxxxx>]

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Everyone,

On 03/21/2012 10:44 PM, Brian F. G. Bidulock wrote:
> Dick,
> 
> Because only artistic works, software and chip masks are protected 
> by copyright (internationally).  Functional items such a PCB
> boards are not protected.  Using library data to make a board is
> "using" your copy of the data anyhoo: not copying it and
> distributing it... So you can make whatever boards you want from
> the library data and your boards will not be subject to any
> copyright provisions the author of the data attempted to attach to
> them.  This also appies to entire board designs.
> 
> --brian
> 
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2012, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> 
>> On 03/21/2012 07:21 AM, Brian F. G. Bidulock wrote:
>>> Miguel,
>>> 
>>> Printed circuit board designs are not protected under 
>>> copyright.
>>> 
>>> --brian
>> 
>> Why not?

Let me make a more general comment: I think this may be different in
different countries. Plus, depending on the country, the authorities
may or may not accept "there is no international copyright protection
on PCBs" when someone sues someone else about violating some license
with the help of kicad.

So what I am saying is we should mention countries along with such
statements, and before starting a re-licensing process, try and find
out in which countries people would benefit from it.

As you can see from my vagueness, I'm not really deep into the
legalese. But from my understanding, the GPL does not enforce anyone
to license their work under GPL if they are merely using the library
(as in using it in a schematic/board, similar to linking a code
library together with their program) but this is enforced if they are
doing work based on the library (as in distributing another library
using footprints from the GPLed library)

I don't know if this clears anything up or further muddies the waters,
but I hope for the first,

Heiko

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