kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[lajos kamocsay <panka.nospam@xxxxxxxxx>]

This discussion about the library license is a really interesting
topic, made me think all day.

I just want to put this out there first, so you know where I'm coming
from: when I contribute code or content to an open source project, I
mostly just want to share something I made, that I find useful, and
hope that it would help or save someone else time. But getting credit
is nice.

Do I need to retain copyright? A quick excerpt from wikipedia:

""Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving
the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a
limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the
copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine
who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who
may financially benefit from it, and other related rights.""

This seems too restrictive, unless I also state that while I retain
copyright, I allow anyone to use it for any purpose, personal or
business.

Creative Commons seems to be a license that does something similar,
but whoever uses the content must give credit to the copyright holder.
How would Kicad enforce that? Create a credits file in the directory
for the 25 parts and modules I used, or would it have to print the
credits on all schematics, or maybe even on all produced PCBs?

I think finding the right licensing is tricky, and possibly would
require the help of an ip lawyer.

One example I liked was the library license from adafruit. From her website:

"""Its released into the Public Domain - that means you can do
whatever you want. We'd like it if you kept the author email/url in
the part description, just so we can be alerted if there are errors.""

I think something like that would work for me.

I'm not a lawyer, so please take all this only as food for thought.


Thanks-
-lajos


On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo
<miguelangel@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2012/3/22 Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> Market share seems to be what we are after?
>>
>> "Market share" makes us what again?   Proud?  Great in the eyes of our children?
>>
>> I cannot remember, maybe I never knew.
>
>
> More people using KiCad, means more free people, since they won't be
> tied to proprietary closed formats.
>
> For example, I have many designs in my company that I wish I could
> open, but, for what?, they can only be opened with Altium, so the
> comunity could not make any use of it.... they're tied to a
> proprietary software, that costs $6000.
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo
> http://www.nbee.es
> +34 636 52 25 69
> skype: ajoajoajo
>
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