[Clipart] OpenClipart and Debian.

[Bryce Harrington]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> > Perhaps it could be defined as a flag that was in use by a group
> > that is no longer extant.  
> 
> A number of the historical flags in the collection belonged
> (historically) to entities (e.g., nations) that are still extant, such
> as the United States.

True, although in those cases the flag is no longer an 'official'
representation for that organization.

> How about, flags that were historically used but are no longer
> current, either due to having been superceded (as with the Betsy Ross
> flag) or due to the entity that used the flag no longer doing so?

Yes, that sounds like a much better definition.

> > So pirate flags, official flags from countries that no longer exist,
> > and flags of political organizations that are no longer officially
> > active would qualify.  Flags of fictional countries and
> > organizations would not qualify though.
> 
> Flags of fictional entities would be fictional flags, not historic
> flags, I would think.

Agreed.

> > Could get tricky trying to figure out whether an organization is
> > "active" or not, though...
> 
> Whether the _flag_ is still in active use would probably be the more
> relevant thing here.  The Jolly Roger in its modern and most common
> form, for example, we might arguably not consider historic in the
> sense of no longer being current, because it is used for all manner of
> things today (e.g., as a poison symbol), although I don't know that it
> is still used in connection with piracy on the high seas (except in
> fictional works such as cartoons); but the pirate flags in the
> collection are significantly less familiar to the modern eye and have,
> I would say, fallen largely out of use.  They are not, however,
> historic _national_ flags.

Believe it or not, from what I've read, the skull-and-crossbones Jolly
Roger we're used to was never actually flown by any pirate
organizations.  Rather, there were a number of very similar flags flown,
such as skull-and-crossed-knives.  The skull-and-crossbones appears to
be an adaptation from the real flags.  So technically it wouldn't be
historical anyway.  

Nonetheless, your example is a good case to consider.  

Bryce