kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Steven A. Falco" <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the explanation.  The package I produced for Fedora indicates GPLv3 or later, and based on what you said, it sounds like that is the correct license for the overall product.

	Steve

On 08/22/2018 06:04 AM, Javier Serrano wrote:
> I forgot to link to an initiative from FSFE for those interested in best practices for documenting the licence of Free and Open Source projects:
> 
> https://reuse.software/
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Javier
> 
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 12:02 PM, Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Steve, some comments inlined below:
> 
>     On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 4:13 PM, Steven A. Falco <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>         I'm packaging KiCad for Fedora.  The web page: http://kicad-pcb.org/about/licenses/ <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
> 
>