Clarify licensing of examples distributed with source code

[dpward]

According to data/License.txt, there are 5 example .FCStd / .stp files which have been licensed under "Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike".

However that is ambiguous: there are several versions of that license. Versions 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5 are not compatible with Debian; currently these files are being stripped out of Debian for that reason. Versions 3.0 and 4.0 are both compatible with Debian.

@jriegel and @wmayer, could you please indicate the desired license version? (Would either version 3.0 or 4.0 be acceptable to you?)

There are more files in the same location which aren't listed. (Other authors include @yorik, @bernd, and @vocx.) What license are those provided under?

Thanks!

[chennes]

FreeCAD files actually contain embedded license metadata: here's what's in each of those files...

• DrawingExample.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• ArchDetail.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• EngineBlock.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• Fem.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• Fem2.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• FemCalculixCantilever3D.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• PartDesignExample.FCStd - All rights reserved
• RobotExample.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• draft_test_objects.FCStd - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Presumably the license (or lack thereof) for PartDesignExample.FCStd is a mistake -- the author is empty, so it's not clear from the file metadata whose rights those are. It appears that @wmayer is the last one to make any large changes to the file. Werner, is that one yours?

[dpward]

Thanks. Unless something changed, data/License.txt says that PartDesignExample.FCStd belonged to Juergen. This file also mentions Schenkel.stp which does not have embedded license data.

After we clear this up, can we just delete data/License.txt?

Also, all but two of the *.FCStd files under src/Mod/Path/ and src/Mod/Fem/ are marked "All rights reserved". Is that accurate?

[wmayer]

@jriegel and @wmayer, could you please indicate the desired license version? (Would either version 3.0 or 4.0 be acceptable to you?)

4.0 is fine.

This file also mentions Schenkel.stp which does not have embedded license data.

According to viewtopic.php?t=31894 the STEP format doesn't have an explicit field for license information. So we can add an extra comment to the file but it will be removed every time a user saves the file.

Werner, is that one yours?

Could be that I once recreated the model from scratch. I will have a look...

[wmayer]

BTW, when looking at the code https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/blob ... icense.cpp then the license identifier only says "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike", i.e. no explicit version either. The version is then shown in the URL "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"

Wouldn't it make sense to add the version number to the identifier too so that we can also add CC 3.0 (or all older CC versions)?

[wmayer]

https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/8753

[chennes]

Wouldn't it make sense to add the version number to the identifier too so that we can also add CC 3.0 (or all older CC versions)?

Yes, I think that's a good idea -- we should probably start using the SPDX short codes, then there is a well-known standard and it's absolutely clear what license is intended.

[dpward]

https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/8753

Thank you!
Could we delete data/License.txt as part of this PR?

[dpward]

What about the *.FCStd files located in src/Mod/Path/ and src/Mod/Fem/? All but two are marked "All rights reserved".
(Let me know if that should move to a new thread.)

[chennes]

@sliptonic, @bernd, care to weigh in on those?