On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 01:23:13PM -0800, Steve Meier wrote: > My position on this is... > > 1) I use mostly my own symbols for the schematics and only my own land > patterns. It is questionable if the release of a hard copy "printed" > schematic or even a pdf would trigger a violation of the GPL. Essentialy > in that format they are non-functional you can't do anything with them > but view them. > > 2) The fonts as computer code can be copyrighted but not the output. So
Everything can be viewed as a computer code. Imagine a RLE encoded picture - that's a programming language with limited capabilities. There are instructions like "Repeat 100x the following instruction" and "emit a green pixel". ASCII file is also a programming language - it has 1-byte bytecodes like "print A", "print !", "feed a new line", "print a space", etc. There is actually no boundary between "data" and "code". CL< > the use of the fonts includded with both PCB and gschem can be used to > produce hardcopy and pdf's or ps files, without triggering a violation > of the GPL or any other license. > > 3) I think the owners of the copyrights to gschem and pcb should state > clearly if they desire that designs created using these tools be forced > to be also released under the GPL. If not then the verbage of the > licenses needs to state clearly how the symbols/land patterns may be > used. > > Thanks, > > Steve Meier > > > > > On Wed, 2006-12-13 at 14:48 -0500, DJ Delorie wrote: > > > Just to clarify: if I use GPLed or BSD-licensed tools to develop > > > hardware, as well as using GPLed symbols/footprints, am I obligated > > > to open-source the hardware design (the schematic, the PCB layout)? > > > > > > Common sense says no, but the degrees of freedom (hah hah) in open- > > > source licenses vary greatly, and if I cannot keep my designs > > > proprietary, then I can't use the tools. > > > > In general, the *use* of a *tool* to produce something, doesn't assert > > license over that something. The exception is when the tool inserts - > > verbatim - some copyrighted content into the output. Thus, the > > concern over "use license" of geda's libraries, which would cover this > > insertion. > > > > If you create your own symbol/footprint libraries, there's nothing > > gEDA's license can do to stop you from producing proprietary boards > > with it. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > geda-user mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user > > > > _______________________________________________ > geda-user mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
