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

[Kai-Martin Knaak <kmk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 18:28:34 +0000, Peter TB Brett wrote:

>  - IMHO footprints or symbols should be distributed under the GPL license
> 
>  - If they are, the copyright owner should provide an exception applying to 
> schematics and layouts using them.
> 

Ack.

Fonts are to text, what a footprint library is to a layout. The
FSF recommends to add an exception to the GPL that applies to the font 
(http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FontException)

    As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font,
    and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the
    document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to
    be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not
    however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered
    by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may
    extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not
    obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception
    statement from your version. 

If "font" is replaced by "footprint library" and "document" by "layout"
the exception will fit the geda case. Technically, this is not two licenses
like it was proposed in this thread, but one. Might be easier to handle.

---<(kaimartin)>---
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak
http://lilalaser.de/blog



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