kicad-developers team mailing list archive

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

Let's take a step back:

Currently we have the 3Dmodels license -
https://github.com/KiCad/packages3D/wiki/Model-Licencing - which is
modelled after the GEDA project (as easyw mentioned previously).

I think this is straight-forward and is consistent with how we would like
to license symbols and footprints.

If the existing 3Dmodels license is adapted for symbols and footprints
(only a few sentences need to be changed), is this OK?

Oliver

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 8:43 PM, Javier Serrano <
javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 10:35 AM, Oliver Walters <
> oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>
> I understand your feeling. However, I think the fact that things will be
> more burdensome in the future is:
>
> a) inevitable once you accept many of the symbols, footprints and models
> are the subject of copyright.
> b) not (very) related to a given choice of license.
>
> Not dealing with this properly exposes users to legal uncertainty, as I
> argued earlier. There are many ways of dealing with this, and all have been
> tested in the source code realm. What you suggest, for example, is very
> similar to "Contributor License Agreements", which have their pros and
> cons, documented extensively on the Internet. The owner of a symbol is its
> creator. (S)he can then decide to grant rights through a license or give
> you or any other person the right to do so on his/her behalf. But all of
> this has to be done explicitly. There is no magic way of doing it without
> any extra burden.
>
> I am a bit sorry to bring in all these complications, but I think as KiCad
> gains a larger user base, in particular commercial users, we need to be a
> bit more solid on the legal side of things. Hopefully we get to a state
> where library contributors don't see this as much of an extra burden, as is
> already the case for source code contributors.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Javier
>