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

[Steve Meier <smeier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My position on this is...

1) I use mostly my own symbols for the schematics and only my own land
patterns. It is questionable if the release of a hard copy "printed"
schematic or even a pdf would trigger a violation of the GPL. Essentialy
in that format they are non-functional you can't do anything with them
but view them. 

2) The fonts as computer code can be copyrighted but not the output. So
the use of the fonts includded with both PCB and gschem can be used to
produce hardcopy and pdf's or ps files, without triggering a violation
of the GPL or any other license.

3) I think the owners of the copyrights to gschem and pcb should state
clearly if they desire that designs created using these tools be forced
to be also released under the GPL. If not then the verbage of the
licenses needs to state clearly how the symbols/land patterns may be
used.

Thanks,

Steve Meier




On Wed, 2006-12-13 at 14:48 -0500, DJ Delorie 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)?
> >
> > Common sense says no, but the degrees of freedom (hah hah) in open-
> > source licenses vary greatly, and if I cannot keep my designs
> > proprietary, then I can't use the tools.
> 
> In general, the *use* of a *tool* to produce something, doesn't assert
> license over that something.  The exception is when the tool inserts -
> verbatim - some copyrighted content into the output.  Thus, the
> concern over "use license" of geda's libraries, which would cover this
> insertion.
> 
> If you create your own symbol/footprint libraries, there's nothing
> gEDA's license can do to stop you from producing proprietary boards
> with it.
> 
> 
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