[Tango-artists] CC-SA & GPL Compatibility

[Michael Schurter]

Jakub Steiner wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 11:00 -0600, Michael Schurter wrote:
> 
>>Hello all,
>>
>>I want to distribute some Tango icons with my GPL'd PHP project, 
>>OpenIT[1], but as far as I can tell the Creative Commons Share-Alike 
>>license is incompatible with the GPL.
>>
>>The FSF thinks its incompatible[2], and the Debian project does not 
>>consider a free license.[3]
>>
>>However, since Tango icons are intended for use on GPL licensed software 
>>such as Gnome & KDE, I suspect I'm not understanding something.
>>
>>To summarize:
>>Can Tango icons be distributed with a GPL project?
>>If not what is there another suggested license to use for my project?
>>
>>Thanks for the great icon library,
>>Michael Schurter
>>
>>[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/openit
>>[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#OtherLicenses
>>[3] http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html
>>_______________________________________________
>>Tango-artists mailing list
>>Tango-artists at lists.freedesktop.org
>>http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/tango-artists
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Since our own interpretations of the licenses don't really mean
> anything, we have forwarded this to the Novell legal department. We'll
> discuss the result of their analysis on the list.
> 
> But if you're interested in my personal view on the matter, I believe
> the spirit of both GPL and CC Share Alike is very similar. It is about
> giving up some rights of the content creator to provide easier sharing
> of the work. Both allow derivate works to be created and both include a
> clause to always remain licensed in exactly the same terms.  If there
> really are incompatibilities, I am convinced the CC and GPL people will
> be interested in fixing them up as I cannot imagine free software
> distributions would like to miss the opportunity to ship a growing
> library of free content. This problem doesn't affect the Tango project
> only, it is a lot broader.
> 
> The reason we chose the CC SA was that it doesn't talk about code, but
> (artistic) works. There are a few points I can make about the debian
> analysis, but again I haven't studied law and I'm not experienced in the
> field to really give these words any credibility:
> 
>       * Both licenses have very similar goals - to provide freedoms to
>         use, modify and distribute the work. The GPL unfortunately uses
>         language specific to source code. 
>       * None of the debian legal analysis talks about a major
>         philosophical clash. It's all nuances, technical difficulties.
>       * One of the nits in the debian legal analysis is the lacking
>         ability to give proper credits as required by the CC SA license.
>         We are currently embedding the license and authorship
>         information in each single icon (not the bitmaps yet, but will
>         be done as soon as the GIMP's metadata editor is in shape). I
>         don't see a problem there.
>       * I don't get the DRM agrument, the GPL is aiming at patents (in
>         the next incarnation), the biggest showstopper for the free
>         software movement. The EFF/free culture movement is aiming at
>         DRM as the biggest showstopper for free media.
>       * The logo trademark -- just like any other identity/logo, the
>         clause allows to use it for showing the content is distributed
>         under one of the CC licenses. I don't see why not being able to
>         mess around with the logo makes the content non-GPL compatible.
>         It doesn't seem to be a problem for Redhat Linux as it didn't
>         seem to matter for Ximian GNOME distribution.
>       * The CC SA have gone through at least two revisions (at v2.5
>         now). The analysis appears to be based on v2.0.
> 
> So to answer your question - having GPL and CC SA incompatible would be
> a huge defeat for both the free software movement and the free culture
> movement. My feeling is that *if* there really are problems, they
> can/will be solved. Tango project may be the motivator to solve them.
> 
> Yes, we want GPLed free software to ship with CC SA artwork and [3]
> doesn't convince me you couldn't even before I have the reply from
> Novell legal.
> 
> cheers
> 

Jakub,

Thanks for the extremely thorough response.  As a supporter of the free 
software and free culture movements I'm a bit dismayed at even the 
appearance of incompatibilities - especially if its based on technicalities.

I will probably go ahead and use the Tango project's icons in my GPLed 
project for the following reasons:

	* As you stated, the philosophies of the two licenses are
	  similar, but their domains are different (media vs. software).
	* As you stated, if there are technical incompatibilities, I'm 		
	  sure they will be resolved as its in the best interest of all
	  parties.
	* I'm not worried about Debian considering my project
	  incompatible with the DFSG because OpenIT is a small project
	  and very easy to manually install.
	* I'm not worried about cease and desist letters from any
	  copyright holders considering I'm doing what the copyright
	  holders involved (i.e. you) intended. ;-)
	* If the worst-case-scenario does happen, and I'm forced to 	
	  remove CC-SA licensed works from my project, I can always go
	  back to stealing icons from art.gnome.org.

On the other hand I'm very interested to hear what the "official" word 
is from Novell legal.  This is obviously a confusing and complex issue, 
so it will be nice to leave it to the professionals.  ;-)

Thanks once again for your helpful response, and thanks to all the 
artists and engineers who have made the Tango project an excellent resource.

Sincerely,
Michael