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

Here is the response from the FSF:

"This is the situation shown in the licensing compatibility matrix
(https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#AllCompatibility) in which
"I want to copy code under" GPLv3 (the code from CERN) and "I want to
license my code under" GPLv2 or later (KiCad). As the footnote says:

    "If you have the ability to release the project under GPLv2 or any
    later version, you can choose to release it under GPLv3 or any later
    version and once you do that, you'll be able to incorporate the code
    released under GPLv3."

In other words, the work as a whole, needs to be licensed under GPLv3
(preferably GPLv3+). This would include updating the license headers.

Fortunately, the GPLv2+ license makes this issue a mere
technicality. Projects with code stuck in GPLv2-only who want to move on
find themselves is a much more difficult position."

We will have to update the license to GPL3+.  I'm assuming that the CERN
contributions are GPL3+ and not GPL3.  I haven't looked.

If there are no concerns, I will update copyright.h file.  As far as the
source files go, I'm not going to change them unless someone raises a
fuss about it because frankly that's more work than I'm interested in
doing.  The GPL2+ includes the GPL3, GPL4 ... so I'm not going to change
the original authors license.  However, all new source files will need
to be licensed with GPL3+.

> 
>> 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. 
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Thanks,
> Torsten
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>