kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/21/2014 04:38 PM, Jon Neal wrote:
> 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).


Jon,

Your uninformed opinion will have no effect on the SoftPLC policy.  In fact, I won't even
bring up your opinion at my SoftPLC Corporation's board of director's meeting, nor at the
corporation's share holder's meeting.  Because I can already anticipate what they would say:


"Dick, we invested in your company in order to make a profit.  Every minute you spend on
KiCad is a minute you are not making product to improve sales and enhance profits and our
return on investments.  It's clear to us that your recent 41,000 line and 21,000 line
patches are unheard of and with Jon's comments, it is clear that they are under
appreciated and not instantaneously enhancing corporate goodwill.  So there's no
justifiable reason, from a business standpoint for you to continue.  KiCad is good enough
now for our own corporate use.  Every minute you spend on KiCad is lost opportunity cost
to the corporation."

"However, those copyrights in KiCad are our corporate assets.  We view them as providing
corporate goodwill long term.  They establish corporate competency, corporate visibility,
and may in the long run lead to other kinds of business.  You did the right thing in
sending a message that the corporation intends to defend the copyrights rigorously, either
inside the project or out.  You also put into place a filter which prefers like minded
code contributors who know how to be respectful of prior ownership investments and also
value their own copyrights and would make good alliance partners in the event of some kind
of project wide code theft."

"It should be enough that the code is licensed under a license which allows respectful end
user use.  However, we live in a world where personal and corporate character seem to be
deteriorating."

"Sending an early warning signal may have allowed the corporation to avoid lawsuits in the
future, while at the same time signalling that SoftPLC Corporation is a viable alliance
partner in defending the collective KiCad copyrights."

"You did the right thing, but its time for you to focus on product development.  You have
made KiCad sufficiently good for our own internal corporate use, and it is clear your time
is better spent focusing on product development."


And at that point the most I could say would be, "well Jon thought his point of view was
important enough to get thrown off the mailing list.  So I owed him that."



> Maybe it is best to let more than just yourself offer an opinion on this.

See above.


> 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.

See above.


Jon, here you have offered an opinion first, and sought knowledge second.
Please don't vote that way.    As we're seeing in the U.S. now, this can only lead to bad
things.

You will be let you back on the developer's list in a couple of weeks if you promise to go
read about how the GPL works and the importance of corporate sponsors in an open source
project.

Generally however, this mailing list is for code contributors.  Non-contributors who come
in here with critical points of view have been thrown out before.  The recourse is for the
developers to do everything by private email, and I don't think that is what is best for
the project.

As Cirilo accurately stated, code contributors are ownership share holders in this
project.  Mere lurkers and users are not, so they have no standing on this mailing list.





>>
>> Jon Neal
>>
>> On Aug 21, 2014 9:56 AM, "Dick Hollenbeck" <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>>
> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 08/21/2014 07:57 AM, Michael Narigon wrote:
>>> > OK, thanks for your comment.  Michael
>>>
>>> Actually I'm not done:
>>>
>>> Neither the KiCad project, nor SoftPLC Corporation will tolerate the removal of copyright
>>> messages unless either a) authorized by the copyright holder or b) incorrectly placed in
>>> the first place, irrespective of opined legality of such removal.  It will not be
> tolerated.
>>>
>>>
>>> Historically, it has not been tolerated because it has never before happened.  Now that it
>>> has happened, this statement needed to be made.
>>>
>>>
>>> Michael has been removed from the project mailing list (after having been given a chance
>>> to offer immediate correction), as will anyone who challenges this stance.
>>>
>>>
>>> Dick
>>>
>>>
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> 
> 
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