Re: gEDA-user: gEDA, where are the loadable examples?

[Al Davis <ad62@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 13 March 2005 06:14 pm, marvindickens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
wrote:
>  If word processing
> programs like openoffice and DTP programs like Scribus had
> only gnu licensed fonts, who would use these programs?
> Nobody. That's why there are "free to use anyway you want to"
> core fonts.
>
> It's in the best interest of every user of gEDA to have a
> "free to use anyway you want to" core set of symbols and
> footprints. gEDA will always struggle for users until this
> issue is addressed. This is not about politics or
> competition.

The issue is having the legal right to distribute the symbols.  
For gEDA to have the right to distribute the package under GPL, 
all parts of the package must be "GPL compatible".  The "No Fee 
License" proposed on gedasymbols.org does not qualify because 
it prohibits charging for it.

Consider this scenario .......

Stuart may want to charge for his CD.  Maybe somebody will make 
a Knoppix CD, and sell copies of it.  The "No Fee License" 
makes that illegal.  This means that if I want to sell such a 
CD, I must remove all symbols with that license.

The impact goes far beyond that.  For example, Debian has gEDA 
and lots of other stuff in its electronics section.  Debian 
would no longer be able to include gEDA.

To simply distribute together, as on the same CD, the 
requirement is more relaxed, but still the "No Fee License" 
doesn't qualify.  Any license approved by the Open Source 
Initiative (http://www.opensource.org) would qualify.  There 
are too many licenses already.  Please don't invent another 
one.

If someone reading this is a lawyer, and has corrections for 
what I said, please let us know.