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

[David Kuehling <dvdkhlng@xxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Karel" == Karel Kulhavy <clock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 09:17:33AM +0100, David Kuehling wrote:
>> For PCB that might be the same: if you distribute gerber files, you
>> distribute the *output* of PCB, which obviously doesn't contain
>> literal code from the footprints.  If you distribute a .pcb-file,
>> that is

> What about "derived work"? Isn't a Gerber derived work from the PCB?
> If someone paints a painting on canvas and I make a digital shot, it
> will be a different object (painting on canvas vs. data in a memory
> card), but it represents the same work and is covered by the copyright
> too.

I must admit that you seem to be right.  Including footprints and
creating a gerber file is quite similar to statically linking a program
with a library.  Maybe I got too lost in the PostSript analogy.

The problem with M4-symbols is, that the output directly contains input
code.  It's a preprocessor after all.  For Postscript typesetting
prologues that's not the case.  Postscript-snipsets can be regarded as
programs, that when run create some unrelated output (such as a
rasterized image or whatever).

But for highly parametrized M4-symbols I will still claim, that the
output after preprocessing is _output_ and not a derived work.  Think of
the M4-Macro as a program with some printf("... %s...") in it.  You
wouldn't normally consider program output generated this way a derived
work?  

Maybe it's the amount of printf's compared to the amount of non-printing
control code that makes the difference here ?  Just take tragesym,
Latex, dvi2ps, Lout, psnup, a2ps etc.  All those programs create output
via lots of printf() and thesse format strings get partially into the
output.  Still nobody would consider the output a derived work of the
program.

regards,

David
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