[Clipart] Proposal: Merging Open Clipart Library into Inkscape

[Bryce Harrington]

Hi all,

This past year, the Open Clip Art Library has been both very successful,
and very unsuccessful.  From the standpoint of collecting clipart, it's
been going like gang-busters, and currently has an incoming queue
bursting with some very nice work.

Unfortunately, it's also suffered from not having a sufficient
development community behind it.  By and large the project is simple:
Just build a collection of clipart.  However, the sheer quantity we gain
poses its own set of technical challenges.  There's also little issues
like keyword translations, searching, detection of invalid SVG,
etc. etc.  On top of that, we've also been maintaining our own
infrastruction (wiki, website, mailing list, accounts, etc.)

The idea has been floated to merge OCAL back into Inkscape.  OCAL was
originally a spin-off from Inkscape, with the hope that we'd gain
participation from other projects like OpenOffice, Sodipodi, KDE, etc.
Unfortunately, that never really turned out, and it's mainly just been a
few of us Inkscapers plus people not really associated with drawing
program projects.

Two other reasons why I think this proposal makes sense at this time:
First, with Inkscape joining the Software Freedom Conservancy, it makes
sense to bring OCAL under that umbrella as well.  Second, with us
looking at new hosting providers for Inkscape, it would be worthwhile to
include provisions for OCAL, as well.

OCAL will benefit from this merge in that it will consolidate the
infrastructure administration into Inkscape, and will hopefully make it
easier for Inkscape community members to work on clipart technology
too.  OCAL is in the process of bringing online a new tool called
ccHost, which is a powerful tool for managing community-contributed
media (it was originally designed for music, but it's in process of
being adapted for handling clipart);  Inkscape will benefit from having
access to this tool as well - which could prove useful for managing
community submitted screenshots, example files, tutorials, palettes, and
other such things.  Inkscape also gains by increasing the scope of its
community, and of course gains the clipart library itself.

Please let me know what you think of this proposal, assuming you've read
this far.  ;-)

Bryce