[Tango-artists] CC-SA/GPL Dual Licensing

[Andreas Nilsson]

Chris Van Patten wrote:
> Hello,
>
> my name is Chris Van Patten, and I'm a volunteer with the Synfig 
> project.  Synfig is a 2D animation program, and is available on 
> Windows, Linux and (soon) OS X.  Details on Synfig can be found at < 
> http://synfig.com>.
>
> I'm interested in using Tango icons for the default icons with 
> Synfig.  Right now, our icon library is stylistically very disjointed, 
> and not very appealing to the eye.  Tango would help us solve this 
> problem, and further we would be helping users who have used 
> Tango-ized applications in the past transition into Synfig more easily.
>
> Unfortunately, as I know you all are aware, Tango icons (at least the 
> default library) is licensed under the CC-SA license.  I'm a huge fan 
> of Creative Commons, I use it for my own films.  However Synfig is GPL 
> licensed and thus we cannot use the default library.
>
> Is there any chance of seeing the Tango icons dual-licensed?  
> Obviously the most obvious dual-license would be CC-SA and GPL, but 
> I've seen LGPL suggested as a better alternative.
>
> I'm really eager to be able to utilize Tango icons and I'm sure others 
> are as well... hopefully we can see some progress so it is easier to 
> include these icons without violating any licenses!
>
> Chris Van Patten
Hi Chris!
As Jon said, using the spec-names are the way to go, and if that is not 
possible code-wise, I suggest you take a look at gnome-icon-theme, that 
is following the tango style-guidelines, but are licensed as gpl.
For how to handle application-specific stuff, have a look at this page:
http://live.gnome.org/ThemableAppIcons
As your application is gpl, it's wisest from a licensing perspective to 
use gpl licensed icons as well. Note that the art-libre icons Jon 
pointed you to is gpl, so there should be no problem to use those.
- Andreas