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

[Steve Meier <smeier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The use of the schematic to generate a netlist and then the pcb is where
a copyright violation might occure. 

For those interested in these issues have a look at the following site.

http://www.jenkins-ip.com/serv/serv_6.htm

Steve M.

On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 15:22 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
> > I also don't think you can verbatum copy someones schematics and
> > re-layout the board without violating the schematics copyright.
> 
> I think you can if you don't copy or redistribute the schematic
> itself.  IANAL, but I think the schematic as a *published work*
> (printout or file), is protected by copyright.  However, the schematic
> as an *idea* is not; you'd need a patent to protect it.
> 
> PCB layouts are different, because the layout itself exists in what
> might be "published form" as the copper on the PCB.
> 
> BIOS is different because it's software, which is more similar to a
> written work than a physical object.  Although they're trying to
> patent the ideas behind software now, too.
> 
> Note that this is why I set my library "use-license" to "unlimited".
> I don't like worrying about these types of problems.
> 
> 
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