Open-source library attribution

heypcb’s module library — the dev boards, breakouts, displays, drivers and carrier outlines you can place on a board — includes footprints and symbols authored by other people and published under open-source licences. This page names them, as those licences ask us to.

Each entry below is redistributed under its own licence, not ours. We have not relicensed anything. Where a licence is share-alike, the files stay under that licence, and if you redistribute them onward your obligations are the upstream licence’s rather than ours.

1. What we changed

We modify the files we redistribute, and the licences ask us to say so. For every library below: Renamed to a vendor-prefixed library id, the footprint's internal name corrected to match, and 3D model paths repointed or removed. Pad geometry is unchanged.

2. Libraries we redistribute

• Alarm-Siren/arduino-kicad-library (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
  35 modules · licence CC-BY-SA-4.0 · source @ 1075811e04a7
  Share-alike: these files remain under CC-BY-SA-4.0.
• CGrassin/kicad_parts — Charleslabs (MIT)
  8 modules · licence MIT · source @ 83b66ca0fdb6
• Espressif Systems — KiCad libraries (CC-BY-SA-4.0 with the KiCad library exception)
  52 modules · licence CC-BY-SA-4.0 · source @ dd76561812ab
  Share-alike: these files remain under CC-BY-SA-4.0.
• g200kg/kicad-lib-arduino (CC0-1.0)
  5 modules · licence CC0-1.0 · source @ bbae574b9f01
• Footprints and symbols referenced in place from the installed KiCad libraries (CC-BY-SA-4.0 with the KiCad library exception); not redistributed.
  47 modules · licence CC-BY-SA-4.0 · source
  Share-alike: these files remain under CC-BY-SA-4.0.
• ncarandini/KiCad-RP-Pico — TPCWare (CC-BY-SA-4.0 with the KiCad library exception)
  1 module · licence CC-BY-SA-4.0 · source @ dc6f9b9f213d
  Share-alike: these files remain under CC-BY-SA-4.0.
• rubienr/wemos-d1-mini-kicad (Apache-2.0)
  4 modules · licence Apache-2.0 · source @ df4790b861e2
• Seeed-Studio/OSHW-XIAO-Series (MIT)
  36 modules · licence MIT · source @ 4ac34af900e6

3. KiCad’s own libraries

Most module footprints come from the KiCad libraries already installed with the design engine. Those are referenced in place and not redistributed by us — we store only the measurements and classifications we authored, plus a pointer to the library entry. They are published by the KiCad project under CC-BY-SA 4.0 with the KiCad library exception.

4. The exception, and what it means for your board

The KiCad library licence contains an exception: using a footprint in an electronic design does not make that design adapted material, and the copyright holder waives share-alike for the design and for files generated from it. Several of the libraries above carry the same exception. Your board, your schematic and your exported manufacturing files are yours. Placing a part from this library on a design does not put your design under any of these licences. See our Terms, section 8.

5. Board fonts

Apart from KiCad’s own font, the typefaces you can set board text in are the Google Fonts library, fetched from one pinned revision of its public repository. Each family is published by its designers under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, the Apache License 2.0 or the Ubuntu Font Licence 1.0, and every file carries its copyright notice and licence in its own name table. We pass the files on unmodified.

When a board text uses one of them, the font file is embedded in your .kicad_pcb so the board opens in KiCad with its lettering intact. Those licences allow that, and they do not reach your design: the lettering on your board and the files generated from it are yours. If you share the board file itself, the font embedded in it stays under its own licence. The font menu shows each family’s name as a picture drawn in that face.

The schematic editor’s KiCad appearance draws its text in KiCad’s own stroke font, Newstroke, by Vladimir Uryvaev, released under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 (a public-domain dedication). We ship its Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and symbol glyphs as they appear in KiCad 10.0.6.

6. No warranty

None of the libraries above is warranted, by its authors or by us. They are provided as-is, and you are responsible for verifying any land pattern before committing it to fabrication — the same responsibility described in our Terms, section 5.