kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Javier Serrano
<javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "Other Usage
> You can be released from the requirements of the license by purchasing
> a commercial license. Buying such a license is mandatory as soon as
> you develop commercial activities involving the SISL library *without*
> disclosing the source code of your own applications."

Just to add some more context which can help understand the situation:
it is very common practice to have dual licensing schemes as a source
of revenue. The rationale goes like this: I develop something good and
license it under a free license. This license gives reassurance to
many developers and they start using it. That makes the "market"
bigger. Some users, though, might want to use the code without
releasing the source of whatever they link with it. For these users, I
set up a dual licensing scheme, whereby they can pay me in exchange of
getting a version of the files (which only I have the right to
generate) with a specific licensing agreement tailored to their needs.
Now the question is, what free license should I use to begin with?
Well, if I want to draw users who don't want to publish their code to
the paying option I need to use the most aggressively copyleft license
I can find. That today is the AGPL. It is stronger copyleft than GPL
because it requests publishing the sources not only when distributing
a binary but also when the binary runs in some server as a service.

The above is not fully accurate legally, but I hope it gives some
context to understand what SINTEF is trying to achieve, and therefore
clarify how SISL can be used in KiCad.

Cheers,

Javier