kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Brian F. G. Bidulock" <bidulock@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Heiko,

Footprints are not subject to copyright either.  They are not
creative: (if they are any good) they are simple data gathered
from JEDEC, IPC and manufacturer sources.  The same applies to
standard symbols used in a schematic library.

It's not worth worrying about: really.

--brian

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012, Heiko Rosemann wrote:
> 
> 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,
> 

-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock    � The reasonable man adapts himself to the �
bidulock@xxxxxxxxxxx    � world; the unreasonable one persists in  �
http://www.openss7.org/ � trying  to adapt the  world  to himself. �
                        � Therefore  all  progress  depends on the �
                        � unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw �