Re: gEDA-user: firmware and the GPL license

["Chris Albertson" <albertson.chris@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 15, 2007 11:12 AM, Steven Ball <hamster@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> ...what about 'code' in the form of Gerbers
> and etc produced by PCB?  Would you consider the resultant board
> produced by PCB to fall under a GPL license?

Absolutely and very clearly "no".  This is exactly the same as using the gcc
compiler.  Compiler output is specifically not covered by GPL.  Another
example is using a GPL's word processor.  The papers you write are
not GPL'd

The test is easy.  If your code (or Gerber files) can be distributed
independently from the the GPL'd software then they are not
GPL'd.

The above test is not trivial and could conceivably fail if say PCB
embedded a copy of some GPL'd file inside every output file it
made.  Then the GPL'd inclusion could not be independently
distributed .  But most developers are not going to do this or
if they did the mistake would be pointed out and it would be
corrected.    (Yes, I've seen this error made and corrected.)


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