kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Heiko Rosemann <heiko.rosemann@xxxxxx>]

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On 08/22/2014 01:44 AM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>> ________________________________ From: Jon Neal
>> <reportingsjr@xxxxxxxxx>
>> 
>> Looking from the outside that is very aggressive, harsh, and
>> childish. I thought you were stepping away from the project Dick
>> (At least that is what you said a few weeks ago). Maybe it is
>> best to let more than just yourself offer an opinion on this. Is
>> there a reason ANY of the code in KiCad is copyright anyone
>> except KiCad itself? Other projects I have worked on did not
>> allow copyright by anyone except for the project itself.
>>> 
> 
> That would be plain weird and contrary to Copyright law in any
> country. Depending on jurisdiction, copyright belongs to all
> authors or else all authors with 'substantive contribution'. In the
> case of GNU source code the FSF asks all contributors to transfer
> copyright to the FSF, which requires a legal document. Simply
> saying that a project 'owns' copyright is 100% pure nonsense. Only
> a legal entity such as individuals and a corporation can claim
> copyright. Simply changing the copyright statement on Dick's work
> is a clear violation of copyright so of course he's furious about
> it. He's already made huge contributions at his own expense and
> receives little thanks - is he expected to tolerate people stealing
> his work as well?

I can't comment on the legal sides of copyright, and I don't expect
you, Dick, to tolerate anyone stealing (to be precise: Claiming credit
for) your work. (Which I believe has done a great deal to make kicad
as usable as it currently is, thank you for that, can't say it often
enough)

However, removing someone from the mailing list for that (as you,
Dick, have done before) IMHO is not any productive way of dealing with
that. Ignoring his contributions, yes of course - until they have the
correct copyright notice. Personally ignoring his eMails - sure, if
that's what you feel like, nobody can force anyone to read anyone's
eMails. But this "you have wronged me and I'm not going to allow you
to talk here any more" stand indeed looks like an over-reacting
childish act of revenge from the outside.

Plus, let me add: I feel (can't be sure) that you, Dick, are giving
very little benefit of doubt/misunderstanding. Yes, Michael made a
mistake, yes, when pointed to it, he merely replied with "thanks for
your comment" - but that may mean "thanks, I'll be re-working my
contribution to your suggestions, read you later". Again, the same
goes for some discussions you had with i.e. Lorenzo or Vesa on this
list. Actually, this attitude is one of the reasons (besides many
other projects eating up my free time) that all I do with kicad
currently is stable builds and using it plus following this mailing list.

Note that this is my personal opinion, and I actually started typing
this as a personal reply to Dick, because I believed we didn't have
the to have the entire world read it - but now that you guys jumped in
in public, I kind of changed my mind on that point.

Best Regards,
Heiko
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