[Clipart] uploading a file

Stephen Silver ocalocal at btinternet.com
Thu Nov 11 08:16:19 PST 2004


I uploaded a file to the Open Clip Art Library today for the first 
time.  While I still remember them, I list here the problems that I
encountered, in the hope that at least some of these things may be
improved.

(1)
I tried to upload the file using the box on the OCAL front page.
It complained about problems with the submission:
 
 * You did not specify the filetype.

But the upload box on the main page does not have any option to
specify this, and it was obvious from the .svg file extension
anyway.

 * The author field is not filled out.

But this was specified in the RDF.
 
 * The title field is not filled out.

But this was specified in the RDF.

 * The image has not been released into the public domain.

But in fact it had been, and this too was specified in the RDF.

(2)
The upload page has a checkbox where one can assert that the clipart
"is not legally encumbered by trademarks or reserved rights".
I don't see how can anyone make such an assertion without doing a 
worldwide trademark search (and probably not even then).  Surely it
should be qualified by "to the best of my knowledge" or something
similar.

(3)
I had given the file a name beginning with "sas-" in order to
reduce the likelihood of a future collision with the name of some
other file.  But the upload script renamed it (without warning)
to two_red_dice_01.svg.

(4)
The upload script made some strange changes to the metadata in
the SVG file.

It changed 

  <Agent rdf:about="">
    <dc:title>Open Clip Art Library</dc:title>

to

  <Agent rdf:about="http://www.openclipart.org">
    <dc:title>HASH(0x89d7d10)</dc:title>

I don't know if my version was correct, but the replacement
looks like gibberish.

It also stripped the date from the file, changing

  <dc:date>2004-11-11</dc:date>

to

  <dc:date></dc:date>

This may be related to the fact that most of the SVG files
on OCAL have a dc:date element containing things such as "42"
or "57", which do not appear to be dates at all.

-- 
Stephen Silver




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