kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 9:02 AM, Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx> wrote:
> Just to add some related content to this conversation,
>
> some time ago there was a discussion about this licensing stuff:
> here:
> https://forum.kicad.info/t/contributing-to-update-of-vrml-librarys-to-step/5049/21
> and here:
> https://forum.kicad.info/t/contributing-to-update-of-vrml-librarys-to-step/5049/30
>
> The base of the discussion was this article:
> http://makezine.com/2014/06/25/us-legal-lessons-from-canadas-first-stl-ip-infringement-case/
>
> I extracted two parts I found here interesting for discussion:
>     "Unlike a functional object, a file is just code. And code is generally protectable by copyright. That means the even if the object is not protectable by copyright, the file may well be."
>     "it may very well be that while code is generally protectable by copyright, the code that simply represents an object is not protectable by copyright."
>
> In any case, I was thinking that if that kind of scripts are cover by the same license of KiCad, there is no more worries, since KiCad does not impose any restrictions on the use of the output /created files by the software it self. (eg: same way you create a gerber file with KiCad, you can create a 3D model file... ) BTW.. How does KiCad ensures the free use of the output files...?
>
> Mario
>

That depends on what you mean by 'free'. If the output is Public Domain then
anyone can use it for whatever purpose they like and have no obligations.
This is really not a problem since as I said you can't make meaningful
changes to the model files without making changes to the scripts, and the
scripts would still be protected by the copyright license. The challenge of
course is that if someone did change the scripts and then made the output
available to third parties but did not make changes to the script available,
would we be able to enforce anything? I suspect not since there is no
enforceable mechanism to indicate that the output files were created by
these scripts. But I think that will be a minor problem; most people will
not play such silly games.

- Cirilo

> ________________________________________
> From: Kicad-developers [kicad-developers-bounces+mrluzeiro=ua.pt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] on behalf of José Ignacio [jose.cyborg@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 26 February 2017 21:35
> To: Cirilo Bernardo
> Cc: KiCad Developers
> Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] [RFC] 3D models repository
>
> One way would be to separate the input data to the scripts (dimension tables) and declare that public domain, then keep the scripts GPL but clarify that they will not impose on the output any more restrictions than the license of the input.
>
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 3:16 PM, Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> If the authors of the scripts agree, perhaps we can simply declare
> the output Public Domain.  Since the output can't be meaningfully
> modified without modifying the GPL-copyrighted scripts I believe
> the protection of the scripts is sufficient. Since we can't change
> licenses of existing models without the creators' permission, we
> will probably have to cull models at some stage or else maintain
> separate repositories for different licenses.
>
> - Cirilo