[Tango-artists] relicensing tango-icon-theme

[Jakub Steiner]

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 9:15 PM, Rodney Dawes <dobey.pwns at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's get a list of all of the contributors, and get confirmations from
> them to release their work under Public Domain. The sooner we can get
> confirmation from everyone, the sooner we can get stuff reorganized and
> licensed in an appropriate manner.

Going through the SVG metadata[1] I have assembled the attached list
of authors.

> The build scripts are irrelevant. They are just data files to tell
> external tools how to build the software. Any similar piece of software
> is going to have approximately equal files to do this. The one-canvas
> workflow is great for creating icons. It's not so great for making an
> icon theme, though. I suggest we simply use the one-canvas method to
> store the "source" for the icons. You (the artists) can just worry about
> creating icons and putting them in the tree. I (the maintainer) will
> worry about automating all the build stuff. If everything is going to be
> in single files, we're going to need a build system to extract them into
> multiple files. I would prefer for that to be automated, so that you
> don't have to worry about updating Makefiles or configure scripts, or
> any of that. We also need the build system to handle translating the
> index.theme and any .icon files that are translatable, as we do now.

Also having the index.theme itself be generated automatically would be
sweet, as it's a file prone to human error. I am sort of abusing the
metadata editor in inkscape to store the icon context for example
(will be mailing about this soon). Even if we don't manage to keep the
metadata/translations editable directly in inkscape, external file per
icon could be an option.

>> Let's resurrect and scavenge the good that's left in tango icon theme!
>
> And now on to my proposal. I think the best way to go about this is not
> to make tango-icon-theme Public Domain, but to create a new repository
> which houses the Public Domain elements which make up the icons we offer
> in tango-icon-theme. This new module could be tango-icon-assets or
> something similar, and would contain just the assets in SVG form (in the
> one-canvas workflow style), such as "paper sheet" and "error emblem".
> Everything in this module would be Public Domain, and there would be no
> need for any build system work at all, as it is purely a repository of
> building blocks for creating full icons.

Sounds fair. We need to communicate tango library as the building
block. Puzzle pieces to create your derivatives.

> >From there, we can make tango-icon-theme into an LGPL icon theme, made
> up of the public domain assets. This module would provide a clearer
> licensing scheme, for developers to be confident about using our icons.
> This would also provide a nice method of allowing contributors to submit
> icons based off the tango assets for inclusion, but who do not wish to
> relinquish copyright in doing so. There icons could be LGPL, yet the
> parts that comprise them, could be Public Domain, save for minor
> differences.
>
> We could also pull over some of the Public Domain assets into other
> icons and themes, such as OpenOffice.org and gnome-icon-theme, without
> issue. The paper sheet for example would be a great place to start
> doing that.

That was the motivator for the license change. Not being able to reuse
assets and needing to recreate everything just because of license
incompatibility is terrible.

> Also, I would much prefer using SVN to git, for the repository server.
> I don't think git necessarily fits with our goals, as there's no need
> for anyone to be maintaining an external repository, and then suggesting
> we pull changes from there. Submitting assets and icons via the mailing
> list and bugzilla are sufficient for our needs, I believe.

SVN is fine, I have updated the request to fdo sitewrangles to
s/git/svn/. It's in bugzilla (#16660).

> I think this would satisfy everything we've been trying to do with
> Tango, but have yet been unable to do, or have done in a very limited
> way, because of the licensing. And I believe this fits in very well
> with Novell's approval to release these assets to the Public Domain.
> This would give us the repository of assets that several have been
> asking for (lots of people have been wanting a "library" of icons),
> let us have a clearly licensed theme, and have our assets be public
> domain, so that anyone can use them and create new icons with them.
> We could also migrate to the one-canvas workflow, and your new
> TangoNG icons, in this "new" theme, and make everyone happy.
>
> What do you think?

Perfect. The new worklfow e-mail follows shortly.


[1] http://pastebin.com/f53417290
-- 
Jakub Steiner <jimmac at gmail.com>
http://jimmac.musichall.cz
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