Licensing

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easyw-fc
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by easyw-fc »

can not tell anything about KiCAD
KiCAD is used by a large amount of companies for professional jobs. That is it.
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sliptonic
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by sliptonic »

easyw-fc wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:54 pm
sliptonic wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:47 pm Let's see what the internet magic wizard says....
I would suggest you to be in touch with layers at KiCAD teams .
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chennes
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by chennes »

KiCAD is GPL3, how is that relevant to our situation?
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adrianinsaval
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by adrianinsaval »

sliptonic wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:47 pm Let's see what the internet magic wizard says....
well the internet wizard is wrong (not really a surprise), GPL is compatible with LGPL and does not restrict swapping the LGPL software. The LGPL2 text explicitly allows distributing LGPL code as GPL:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.0.en.html wrote:3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library.
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by prokoudine »

easyw-fc wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:17 pm
user1234 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:11 pm Anyway, FreeCAD is LGPLv2 and can not use GPLv3
The same for Kicad... KiCAD is GPL3 including OCCT which is LGPL2
In other words, not the same at all. LGPL software cannot distribute GPL-licensed code along with it and continue being LGPL.

This is not even the only instance where it affects FreeCAD. The sole reason LibreDWG is not shipped as part of FreeCAD is because it's GPLv3+.

The realthunder fork is in the gray legal area, as someone already mentioned. For that reason, it would never be packaged by Debian, for instance.
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by user1234 »

prokoudine wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:25 pm The realthunder fork is in the gray legal area, as someone already mentioned
As @easyw-fc already mention, realthunder have relicensed his fork to GLPv3. So this seems not to be gray area, all valid.

https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_ ... er/LICENSE


But FreeCAD itself is still LGPLv2+ (and there are good reasons to stay at it).


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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by chrisb »

I came back after a few hours and see here almost three pages off topic :roll: . Please open a new topic to discuss licensing stuff.
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by wandererfan »

FreeCAD is licensed under LGPL. It can not include GPL s/w in the distribution. Period. Any combination of LGPL and GPL must be licensed under GPL.

To release FreeCAD as GPL so as to include GPL s/w, every FreeCAD copyright holder would have to agree to relicense their portion of the code as GPL. Anything that was not re-licensed would have to be replaced.

According to the license file, the Assembly3 workbench is licensed under GPL, and so it can not be distributed as part of FreeCAD. The Link fork is still licensed under LGPL according to LICENSE in RT's repo.
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by adrianinsaval »

user1234 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:38 pm As @easyw-fc already mention, realthunder have relicensed his fork to GLPv3. So this seems not to be gray area, all valid.

https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_ ... er/LICENSE
that repo is just the assembly 3 addon, realthunder's fork license is here: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/ ... ly/LICENSE
still listed as LGPL2, gray area it is...

One could argue that even realthunder's FreeCAD is not really a derivative of assembly 3 or solvespace since it can be completely separated and still be fully functional, but I don't know about the legality of distributing them together.
wandererfan wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:48 pm To release FreeCAD as GPL so as to include GPL s/w, every FreeCAD copyright holder would have to agree to relicense their portion of the code as GPL. Anything that was not re-licensed would have to be replaced.
This is not true, everyone has licensed their portion of code under the LGPL2 license (or something less restrictive in some cases), which explicitly allows using the GPL license instead (or newer versions of LGPL) since those are compliant of the terms of the LGPL too. No permission is needed for this, what we would need permission for is for example to relicense as MIT or BSD since those are less restrictive.
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Re: The need for a default assembly workbench

Post by prokoudine »

user1234 wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:38 pm As @easyw-fc already mention, realthunder have relicensed his fork to GLPv3. So this seems not to be gray area, all valid.

https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_ ... er/LICENSE
You are pointing at the LICENSE file of the Assembly 3 workbench while discussing FreeCAD.

You will find https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD/ ... ly/LICENSE to be a copy of GNU LGPL v2.
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