[Tango-artists] About Art Libre Set, Licenses and Pinta

[Rodney Dawes]

On Mon, 2010-07-12 at 21:05 +0200, jEsuSdA 8) wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> This morning I suggest the developers of Pinta
> ( http://infosertec.loquefaltaba.com/ ) to use the Art Libre Set Icons
> to 
> improve the application.
> 
> As you can see in the bugtracker
> ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/pinta/+bug/604519 ) there are not
> possible to use them 
> because they are licensed under the GPL (as it appears at Art Libre
> Set webpage).
> 
> Then I have two questions I need to know to clarify this issue:
> 
> - Is the Tango Icon project under GPL? 
> Few months ago I read in this mailing list the Tango Project was
> relicensed from GPL to Public Domain. It is true?

The tango-icon-theme package was never under the GPL. It used to be
CC-By-SA 2.5, but now all of the tango-icon-theme icons are Public
Domain. This does not mean all icons following the Tango Style
Guidelines are Public Domain, however.

> - In case Tango under Public Domain, Art Libre Set will be too or not?

The art libre set is a separate project, and not part of
tango-icon-theme. The icons are licensed as per their respective
authors' decisions. I believe most of them are actually licensed as LGPL
and included in the GIMP source tree. They are not installed as part of
the gnome or tango icon themes.

> - Someone can explain me why the GPL is not compatible with the MIT
> license?

The GPL does not allow to ship any of the contents under a different
license. It does not preclude an MIT licensed application from loading
content which is released under the GPL however, and MIT and GPL are
compatible licenses in that respect. It is always possible to ship the
icons under a separate license from the code (which should be anyway,
since the GPL and LGPL are really only applicable to code).

> Thank you for your help!
> I hope the people of Pinta could use the Tango icons to bring a good
> looking interface to your users. ;)

Anyone, anywhere, can make and use tango styled icons if they wish. If
you want to use pre-drawn icons though, the license of that artwork
needs to be respected. I would suggest that the icons included in GIMP
are probably the definitive "art libre set" at the moment, and so
whatever license is there, should be followed for them (I believe it is
LGPL).