kicad-developers team mailing list archive

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

Hi Jose,

On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 5:33 PM, José Ignacio <jose.cyborg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> My two cents. All this copyleft licensing stuff for _libraries_ is
> over-complicating things, copyright on stuff like footprints and accurate
> 3d models is fairly tenuous as the representation of the work is very
> tightly constrained by engineering concerns and standardization, and a good
> chunk are (or can be) machine generated from databases already in the
> public domain.
>

I agree the creative side is stronger for symbols than for footprints.
Copyrightability is, as you well point out, a subject of debate in various
areas. However, I think the real debate we should have is whether we want
to make the official libraries permissive or weak copyleft. Because
copyrightability will not be settled anytime soon, it is safer to assume
that these things are copyrightable, and grant whatever rights we want to
grant explicitly. In proposing the headers for licensing, I assumed that
the KiCad project prefers a weak copyleft regime. If we go permissive, CC0
is probably the best option.


>
> There are already two repositories of kicad footprints and symbols in the
> public domain (or CC0 where not allowed) that I use heavily and
> occasionally contribute to: https://github.com/cpavlina/kicad-schlib
> https://github.com/cpavlina/kicad-pcblib I am not trying to undermine the
> official kicad library effort, but I mention this if people are not aware,
> and would like to contribute to the public domain.
>

Strictly speaking, public domain is absence of copyright, which is not even
possible for something you just created in many jurisdictions. CC0 is a
good choice if you are in that kind of mindset, I agree.


>
> My kicad use is almost exclusively commercial but I contribute every new
> symbol and footprint I make (except the ones that are so project specific
> that would be absolutely useless for anyone else, or by client's specific
> request) back to the public domain in my fork of those repos (
> https://github.com/iromero91/kicad-pcblib https://github.com/iromero91/
> kicad-schlib) partly because of the way those libraries are intended to
> be used, it is much easier to publish stuff than hoard it, no license needs
> to compel me to do it.
>

But OTOH, the presence of a weak copyleft licence is no obstacle at all to
continue doing what you are doing. Simplifying a bit, it just turns your
current behavior into a requirement, so no change for you.


> Just to clarify, I have no issues with copyleft in general, specially I
> think copyleft is beneficial for software and tools like kicad, or even
> tools like footprint, symbol and model generators, I just feel it is not
> quite right to have their license extend to generated items when the input
> data could be part of a public domain database; Or to worry too much about
> claiming copyright on each little symbol or footprint whose main design
> elements are either copied from manufacturer recommendations or
> mechanically/slavishly derived from such and current industry standards.
>
> I understand that generating and maintaining a database of components is a
> lot of work, and people don't like being taken advantage of, but copyright
> might be the wrong tool for the job. What would be the real risk we are
> protecting ourselves against with a defensive license on the libraries? For
> kicad itself there is a risk people like some pcb manufacturers that like
> to have their own branded tools could take it, add things to it, build an
> userbase and then not contribute back to the main project. I don't feel the
> same would happen with libraries, how would it fragment the community? If
> something is public domain people can't just slap their copyright on top of
> it and try to enforce it, specially if the whole public domain database is
> already included with the software for everyone to see.
>

I am not sure I understand the argument. There are clearly more risks of
proprietarization whenever you use a permissive license, because you are
explicitly giving permission to improve and not share back. The question
for me would rather be, what are the risks and problems we incur by using a
weak copyleft license? The main issue I see, very apparent already in this
thread, is that we have to identify the copyright holders for each
contributed symbol, footprint and 3D model! Strictly speaking though, we
must do it anyway, even for a CC0 license. Any other issues you can see?

Cheers,

Javier