Re: gEDA-user: licensing (GPL or otherwise) for hardware?

[ldoolitt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Andy -

On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 11:15:12AM -0700, Andy Peters wrote:
> Just to clarify: if I use GPLed or BSD-licensed tools to develop  
> hardware, as well as using GPLed symbols/footprints, am I obligated  
> to open-source the hardware design (the schematic, the PCB layout)?

If you never distribute a design, no license will ever coerce
you to open-source it.

Using or incorporating BSD-licensed anything will never force
you to open-source a design.

If you merely use GPL code to produce a design, that does not
force your to open-source the design, even if you distribute it.

The only time the GPL will apply to your design is if your design
can be considered a "derived work" (in the copyright law sense)
of the GPLed material.  For an example of that process that
has some relation to the concern you raise, look at the parsers
generated by flex and bison.  The output of these programs include
both material you design, and GPLed stuff.  The two are intertwined,
necessarily covered by the GPL, so if you distribute the result
you are obligated to provide the source (at least to your customers,
see the GPL for full details), and that includes the stuff you wrote.

I would certainly argue that if you distribute a schematic or layout
that incorporates a GPLed symbol or footprint, that distribution would
have be in a GPL-compatible form.  I would not assert that
manufacturing and distributing the resulting circuit board would
trigger any GPL terms.  In a real sense, the opinions of open-source
zealots like me, and the terms of the GPL itself, don't matter.
The opinions that matter are those of your customers, who are the
only ones who have standing to ask for the "source" mandated by the
GPL, and the judge, who will be called on to decide if the work
your customers received is a "derived work" of the GPLed material.

This is a good argument for not using the GPL for footprints.
BSD, or even LGPL, makes a lot more sense, IMHO.

IANAL, so these opinions are theoretically worthless.

    - Larry


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