Re: gEDA-user: firmware and the GPL license

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

>  Surely a company cannot enforce footprint
> protection, since they cannot tell the difference, from looking at a
> board, between a hand-made footprint and a re-used footprint.

That's why data can not be covered by copyright. For example the
names and numbers in a phone book can be reproduced and re-publised
but the typographical layout of space and the pagebreaks and width of
the colukns and so on are covered under copyright.

I think what this means for foot prints is that the size the location of the
pads is not covered but the bytes in the file that describe the size and
location of the pads is covered.  So you could re-format the file so that
the data are written differently you'd be OK.

The same applies to compilations of public domain works.  each work
is not covered but the act of assembling a compilation is itself a creative
effort that can be copyrighted.   So a footprint library might be covered
if it was assembled from public information.
-- 
=====
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California


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