kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Carsten Schoenert <c.schoenert@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

while working on a current snapshot (42c6af4) of the KiCad development
tree and adjusting the build environment for Debian unstable I'm facing
the output of the Lintian QS tool about the usage of the non-free
Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike (CC-NC-SA) license for some
source files. The used license is considered as non-free within Debian.

> $ grep -r by-nc-sa bitmaps_png/sources/
> bitmaps_png/sources/dark/gbr_select_mode2.svg:           rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"; />
> bitmaps_png/sources/dark/gbr_select_mode2.svg:         rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/";>
> bitmaps_png/sources/dark/bug.svg:           rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"; />
> bitmaps_png/sources/dark/bug.svg:         rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/";>
> bitmaps_png/sources/light/gbr_select_mode2.svg:           rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"; />
> bitmaps_png/sources/light/gbr_select_mode2.svg:         rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/";>
> bitmaps_png/sources/light/bug.svg:           rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"; />
> bitmaps_png/sources/light/bug.svg:         rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/";>

The CREDIT file in the same folder is saying something different.

> $ cat bitmaps_png/sources/CREDITS 
> ICONS:
> 
> Original KiCad Icon work by Inigo Zuluaga and Fabrizio Tappero among others
> 
> KiCad icons were redesigned in 2020 by Aleksandr Zyrianov
> 
> License: CC-BY-SA 4.0

No matter how the correct situation is, I see here a mismatch between
the source license and the later used license. I'm not sure if the
source license is by-nc-sa-4.0 (CC-NC-SA) then the derived work can be
licensed as CC-BY-SA.

If the source files with the critical license aren't used for building
the KiCad package I can drop them while importing the source into the
Debian working tree. The KiCad package is already using the 'dfsg'
suffix due other files we need to exclude.

So, how is the correct license situation for the SVG files in questions?
And, are these files critical for building the KiCad package?

-- 
Regards
Carsten