kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Oliver Walters <oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx>]

>
> After that, people who contribute new symbols/fottprints/models should
> make copyright and license notices part of that submission, exactly as for
> source code.


This is going to be very burdensome - it is already quite a lot of work to
submit symbols / footprints against the KLC (KiCad Library Convention).
Requiring users to add license files will:

a) Bloat the libraries

b) Be beyond the ability or patience of most contributors.

I would strongly prefer an approach that essentially says "If you
contribute to the library, the symbols / footprints will be placed under
the existing license available in the LICENSE file."

 I had been operating under the assumption that we only had to consider the
license that applies to library data AFTER they have been accepted into the
library.

Allowing per-file licensing is going to be a real mess.

Oliver

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 6:29 PM, Javier Serrano <
javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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
>