kicad-developers team mailing list archive

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

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 1:21 AM, Oliver Walters <
oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Cirilo,
>
> Can we stipulate as part of the license file that any contributors agree
> implicitly that their generated models are released as public domain? i.e.
> don't require explicit release from every contributor, as it is inherent to
> the library LICENSE?
>
> a) If you contribute model / footprint / symbol to KiCad libraries, they
> can be distributed in accordance with [whatever license we choose here]
>
> b) KiCad assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the model data
>
> c) Library data may be shared freely*
>
> * Here "freely" is the current source of contention. I am all for having
> as permissive a license as possible - I don't see any benefit from locking
> the library down.
>

I don't think we need to invent anything new here. Just agree on a licence:
CC0, CC-BY-SA or GPL with addenda, etc. We could also decide to accept a
set of licenses. Then contributors who submit a model with a different
license don't get their model merged. This is how the source code part of
KiCad operates (except it is not seen because to the best of my knowledge
there has been no conflict so far), without the need of a separate
agreement. I don't see a reason to do otherwise here. The only difference
wrt the source code part is we are now starting from a situation where the
copyright and licensing notices need to be filled for some past work. After
that, people who contribute new symbols/fottprints/models should make
copyright and license notices part of that submission, exactly as for
source code.

Cheers,

Javier