[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 104052] Add LibreColour HLC palette

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104052

--- Comment #36 from Christoph Schäfer <christoph-schaefer at gmx.de> ---
(In reply to Khaled Hosny from comment #31)
> (In reply to Christoph Schäfer from comment #16)
> > Second, you can modify the palette. What you can't do is modify it and
> > distribute it under the same name,
> 
> That is not what the license says, quoting
> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/:
> > NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material,
> > you may not distribute the modified material. 
> 
> So redistribution of modified versions is unconditionally not allowed, which
> makes it non-free software and I’m pretty sure Debian would not be the only
> distribution having issues with that.
> 
> I’m guessing you want a license similar to TeX license which allows
> modification and distribution of modified version as long as they are
> renamed, unlike CC BY-ND.

Hi Khaled,


The situation with colours is a bit different from code, so it's not the same
licensing issue as TeX.

Please let me explain why this palette exists and how it came into being. The
most widely used colour system out there is Pantone (actually serveral
"systems"). There are others, and all of them are proprietary. The problems
with Pantone are countless, and in my opinion it's one of the worst colour
reference producers in the  market. First of all, the licensing conditions are
draconian. You aren't even allowed to compare a Pantone colour to another
colour! Second, Pantone colour references are *not* reliable. You can buy three
seemingly identical references and get three slightly different colour
representations. Third, Pantone has changed the numbering scheme over time and
assigned new colours to existing codes, which can lead to confusion in colour
communication. Fourth, you can't rely on digital Pantone colour libraries even
if they are included in a product from the same vendor. For example, if you're
a user of Adobe CC, the Pantone libaries in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
aren't identical. From a colour-related point of view Pantone colours aren't
even a real colour system, just a random collection of colours.


One of the goals of freieFarbe / freeColour is to provide a non-proprietary
alternative to Pantone & Co. Since colour is a physical and physiological
phenomenon, it can't be protected by copyrights or patents. Hence the idea to
create a free colour reference based on CIE LAB. LAB is a colour model that
comprises all colour visible to the human eye, and it's used for colour
calculations by all professional graphics programmes, including GIMP, Inkscape
or Scribus. If you look at the Pantone colour libraries shipped with products
from Adobe, Corel or Quark, you'll find that the colours are all stored in LAB,
even if the software displays something different.


fF / fC created a colour fan using the LAB model for users of programmes that
actually allow for working in LAB mode, e.g. Photoshop. This is useful if you
want to find out how a display colour will look in print, but it's useless if
you want to select a real-world colour and use it in a computer software. So we
created another colour reference, using a more intuitive representation of LAB,
namely HLC. HLC is to LAB what HSV is to RGB (roughly). It's *very* intuitive,
and, having worked with Pantone, HKS and RAL colour references in the past, I
never found it easier to find a particular colour on a printed fan than with
HLC.


The colour reference is (obviously) printed with CMYK colours on high quality
coated paper. It's the maximum quality and colour correctness currently
achievable with the four process colours. The original digital colour palette
uses LAB values to enable precise colour conversion from LAB to various output
targets, depending on the respective ICC profile. The RGB palettes for
LibreOffice, GIMP et al. have been created using a standard sRGB profile, so
what we have here is a subset of LAB, as well as a subset of sRGB, namely all
colours that can be reproduced in CMYK (hence the "muted" colours).


Unlike TeX, neither the RGB values nor the HLC numbers can be protected by
copyrights nor any other rights -- it's just physics and numbers. The only
reason we use a licence at all is that a systematic collection of colours like
CIE-HLC that refers to a real-world colour fan can be, and we do use copyright
and the specific CC-BY-ND licence to prevent users from damaging others. Let's
assume someone removes one third of the colours and still distributes the
palette under its name. So someone buys the colour fan, relying on the
information that all colours on the fan are included in the digital version,
but then won't find them. Who will be blamed? The non-profit organisation that
wants to liberate colour! Back to Pantone -- better the devil you know etc. Or
assume someone modifies the RGB values: Changing R:45 G:50 B: 35 to R:43 G:50
B:35 won't make much of a difference, but changing R to 25 will. The result
will be mismatches. Who will be blamed? Likewise, adding colour steps beyond
the increments of 10 we chose, e.g., H:220 L:40 C:20 to H:225 L:40 C:20 will
result in users not finding the colour in the reference. Who will be blamed?


Thus, the only way to preserve the integrity of the palette in connection with
the physical fans is to disallow modifications. fF / fC wants colour to be
free, but freedom doesn't mean anarchy. Moreover, producing these fans (CIELAB
and CIEHLC) in their current quality was really expensive. Members of the
initiative spent a lot of their own money to make them a reality (that was
before the initiative was recognised as a non-profit organisation) as a
contribution to the liberation of colour from companies like Pantone. They
don't want their efforts to be sabotaged by others, including companies that
don't like competition from a non-profit organisation. If you think Ballmer's
Microsoft or McBride's SCO were ruthless and mean, you probably have no
experience with some so-called colour vendors!


Summary: The colours and the numbers as such aren't and cannot be protected by
copyright (unlike TeX), only this particular combination. And the licence's
only purpose is to preserve a truly free colour alternative from sabotage.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are on the CC list for the bug.