kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/18/2015 6:36 AM, "Torsten Hüter" wrote:
> Hi Wayne,
>  
> 
>>> Is there somewhere an overview of the used libraries / 3rd party software and their licenses? (for instance an list, >LibreOffice table or similar)
>>
>> No.
> 
> Would it be helpful to create a table for the internal documentation? If yes, how should the table look like and what kind of format should be used?

I can create a table and add it to the developer docs which will be both
in the source code and published on line when the source docs are built.

>  
>>> The push and shove router is covered by the GPLv3+. This means the whole KiCad package has to be released under the terms of >>the GPLv3 license, if you're including the P&S-router.
>>>
>>> However, all of the license files in kicad say 2+.
>>>
>>> However, the "About../License" tab shows the following text:
>>>
>>> "The complete KiCad EDA Suite is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or any later version"
>>>
>>> I would think this would be adequate but I have not asked the FSF. Do
>>> we actually have to do this or is the GPL2+ statement OK.
> 
> I'm not a lawyer but would say that it is a one-way road, you can't "downgrade" from GPL3+ to GPL2+ and
> the whole package has to be distributed under the terms of the GPL3+ license. You can find on slashdot.org an interesting discussion about this subject:
> 
> http://ask.slashdot.org/story/07/06/16/1818241/gplv2-and-gplv3-coexisting-in-the-same-project

The only thing I saw at the FSF is this:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility

Since our source code is GPL2+, it is by definition compatible with the
GPL3.  It does not say that you have to declare your source is GPL3.

> 
> Perhaps it makes sense to ask an (license) expert too.

I sent a email to the FSF to ask for clarification.

> 
>> Is it directly derived or is it a clean room implementation? It doesn't
>> say anywhere that I could see that it is derived from the Hershey font.
>> If it's a clean room implementation than we could ask if it can be
>> re-licensed to be GPL compatible.
> 
> This is indeed a very good question. I've seen in the helpers/tools_to_build_newstroke-font/README.txt the following line:
> font_draft1.lib - old draft glyph library with the metrics from Hersheys Simplex
> So I'm guessing he has extended the Hershey font. Of course it could be that he has repainted all chars/symbols. Still then is the problem, that he has released the font under the terms of the CC-BY license.
> 
> Asking the original author is a very good idea. 

I'll try to contact Vladimir and see if he is amicable to licensing his
code under the GPL font exception.  If I cannot get in touch with him,
I don't know what the next course of action would be.

> 
>> This would push back the stable release. How do you suggest we package
>> the fonts? Packaging them separately is going to be painful.
> 
> This is quite true, but only required if the font can't be relicensed to GPL. If the GPL is choosen, it would make sense to define a GPL font exception for the KiCAD suite - so that the font can be embedded into the user design without affecting the design license.
> 
> If the author does not agree, it could be necessary to seperate the font from the program. The "newstroke" font is contained in a header (helpers/tools_to_build_newstroke-font/newstroke_font.h). This is an array of strings, the format is relative simple - one way could be a reader, that parses this header at runtime - or put the strings into a separate file and parse them there.
> 
>> I like what the geda folks did. They basically give you permission to
>> modify the symbols for use in your designs but enforced the GPL if you
>> are going to provide libraries of files derived from the symbols. We
>> should make a similar statement about our libraries since they are GPL
>> licensed if no one objects.
> 
> Sounds like a good plan! 
> It would be important to define a policy as well; any contributor has to agree with the terms of this license. 
> I don't know if that's true for all parts of the library - last time I've seen some contributions with a different licenses.

Before I spend too much time on the library licensing, do any of the
library developers have any objections to the wording in the geda
license?  The nice thing about using an exception like the geda project
used is we can still keep the GPL license everywhere.  I think it works
nicely with the intent of the libraries that the KiCad project provides.

Cheers,

Wayne

> 
> Thanks,
> Torsten
> 
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