kicad-developers team mailing list archive

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

Hi Steve, some comments inlined below:

On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 4:13 PM, Steven A. Falco <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> I'm packaging KiCad for Fedora.  The web page: http://kicad-pcb.org/about/
> licenses/ states that KiCad is GPLv3 or greater.  Yet, the source files
> (for example eeschema/edit_bitmap.cpp) still say GPLv2 or greater.
>

Some source files are GPL2-or-later (aka "GPL2+"), some others (e.g. the
P&S router) are GPL3-or-later (aka "GPL3+"). With a GPL2+ header you are
telling the licensee (s)he is free to take a given file as GPL2 or any
later version, which at this point in time can only mean GPL3. With a GPL3+
header you are telling licensees they can take the file as GPL3 and, in the
future, if it ever exists, GPL4 and so on. Because GPL3 files cannot
coexist with GPL2 files in the same project, the only way for legally
distributing the whole project is to interpret GPL2+ files as released
under GPL3, a permission which the copyright holder explicitly granted by
including the "or later". This is what is meant by "GPL3" when describing
the licensing regime of the whole project.


>
> I know it is a huge hassle to go through all the source files and update
> them to say GPLv3 or greater, but that probably should be done if GPLv3 is
> truly the intent.
>
>
Going through that process is not needed for the reasons I exposed earlier.
It is also quite impractical, because the only person allowed to change a
copyright and licensing header in a given file is the copyright owner, and
that, for KiCad, means a lot of people, some of whom might even be hard to
reach today.

Cheers,

Javier