kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo_bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----

> From: Maciej Sumiński <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>
> To: KiCad Developers <kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 6:27 AM
> Subject: [Kicad-developers] Footprints licence
> 
>T here was an interesting question asked on the #kicad irc channel: as 
> there is the GPL licence note (COPYRIGHT.txt) included in the library 
> repository, how does it affect PCBs created with the libraries? Are the 
> boards created using the library repository also licenced under the GPL?
> As footprints are stored in .kicad_pcb files, it could be compared to 
> static linking of GPL software libraries, so the whole design should be 
> licenced under the GPL. Am I right or different rules apply?
> 
> Regards,
> Orson
> 


 As an example, the GPLv3 claims to be "for software and other works" so I would avoid using any footprint with GPLv3. However, it is not clear to me whether a footprint copyright can be enforced or not - in principle it can, but how many sensible variations can you have on, say, a DIP6 footprint? If I converted an Eagle footprint, is this a derived work or not? Anyway, since it's not a clear case one way or the other it would be best to avoid the footprint.

 In my own work with parametric VRML models, the models are released with a permissive license (and no explicit copyright statement - something of an oversight) since for me nothing else makes sense unless I wanted to sell access to such models.  If KiCad is to distribute footprints etc, I think footprints should only be accepted if there are no GPLv3-like restrictions.

- Cirilo