[Tango-artists] relicensing tango-icon-theme

[Rodney Dawes]

On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 12:10 -0300, Steven Garrity wrote:
> Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> This is an interesting solution. However, I'm concerned that in 
> practice, having two distinct 'buckets' each with different licensing 
> will prove to be a problematic new layer to deal with.
> 
> For example, imagine I want to create an icon that's a film-strip + a 
> music note. Would I create the film-strip as a public domain asset, then 
> create a music note ass a public domain asset (assuming these don't 
> already exist), then put them together in an icon that's LGPL?

If you want to, you could, but it is not necessary.

> If I understand correctly, is it really worth this added layer? Why not 
> have everything public domain?

Not everyone wants to release their work into the public domain. The
reason for this idea, as i stated, is some people are adverse to making
their contributions public domain. It would give these people the
opportunity to still contribute by only contributing full icons, which
may include other assets, but keeps their work as LGPL.

It also prevents people from taking the assembled theme and releasing it
under some other license as their own work. They could still use the
assets to assemble similar icons, of course, but would lose out on
trying to steal the full theme itself.

It really doesn't matter. It was just a suggestion. If the better
solution is to go straight PD with the assets and theme both, then
fine, we can do that.

-- dobey