Dear gEDA developers, Would it make sense to replace
"As a special exception, if you create a design which uses this symbol, and embed this symbol or unaltered portions of this symbol into the design, this symbol does not by itself cause the resulting design to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the design itself might be covered by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this symbol, you may extend this exception to your version of the symbol, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version." with the original FSF wording (plus a parenthetical clarification): "As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font, and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version. (A schematic symbol library is a kind of font. A footprint library is also a kind of font.)" ? The "font" language seems to imply that any particular letter of the font is embedded all-or-nothing. But the "symbol" language, in addition, seems to imply embedding part of a symbol is also OK. I like loosening up the requirements like this, I just don't want to hassle with yet another slightly-different license.
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 From: Stuart Brorson
...
I revised the symbol license text
at http://geda.seul.org/license.html . ...
I am calling for comments & flames.
...
You folks over on the PCB side of the fence are of course welcome to use the same text, but you'll need to do s/symbol/footprint/ and s/gEDA\/gaf/PCB/, but besides that, it's ready to use.
...
* Also, I didn't want to contribute to the population explosion of open-source licences. Therefore, just sticking to the GPL + exemption seemed like the right thing to do.
...
Symbols are similar to the font files used in document processing software -- they are graphical objects used to express your ideas.
... I agree that too many licenses create too much hassle. So I prefer that footprints, symbols, and fonts all have the same license. Even though one could argue that a footprint is "functional" like a program subroutine, while a schematic symbol is a fairly arbitrary shape, like a letter in a font. Rather than create one slightly different exception with s/font/symbol/ , (and another slightly different exception with s/font/footprint/ ), I think it would be better to use word-for-word "the same" license and exception. Then add a note something like "(A schematic symbol library is a kind of font. A footprint library is also a kind of font.)" or "(For legal purposes, each of our schematic symbol libraries is a kind of font, and is covered by the "font" exception. For legal purposes, each of our footprint libraries ...)".
* We wish to specifically prohibit anybody from building gEDA's symbols into their *software* products, and then placing restrictions on how the resulting product may be used. If you bundle gEDA symbols -- whether modified or unmodified -- into your software and then distribute it, then you must allow for the software's (and symbols') continued redistribution under the GPL. Again, this is case 1 distribution; the GPL ensures this.
Does the GPL really say this? I think it allows redistributing the symbols, and requires telling the user that the symbols *can* be redistributed freely, and requires that the software accepts new updated symbols. But I don't think the GPL requires the bundled software to be GPL. Or am I thinking of the LGPL ? Imagine some person out there using a proprietary EDA system. We *do* want to encourage that person to create new symbols, and donate them to the public domain (or some other appropriate license) so we can use with gEDA, right? Do the licenses on the libraries listed at http://techref.massmind.org/techref/app/PWB_libraries.htm allow us to redistribute them in gEDA format under our license?
The Free Software Foundation
...
exemption clause ... for fonts.
...
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FontException
... Has anyone actually written to the email address mentioned on that page and asked about symbols (and footprints) ? -- David Cary http://opencircuits.com/User:DavidCary _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
