License mess

[Kenneth Wimer]

Hi all,

* Ante Wessels <vitanova2 at softhome.net> [Mar 16. 2004 13:46]:
> There are 2 possibilities to do it right:
>  - put the sources under the lgpl. There will be no license problem. One thing 
> that could happen though, is that artists develop the illustrator sources 
> further, draw pixel icons from these sources. This will not help the 
> development of the svg sourcebase.
>  - use a more restrictive license. Only allow svg sources to be made out of 
> them, that have to be placed under the license for the Crystal icons as found 
> in kdelibs/pics/LICENSE.crystalsvg. This helps building the svg sourcebase, 
> the initial and ultimate goal. To this can be added that copies of the svgs 
> have to be sent to Everaldo and Suse.

The reason that I included the files with the artistic2 license was the
second reason. I don't think it would be a good idea if everyone starts
only working on AI files unless we have editors in linux that can "do"
AI files well. Although most of the linux SVG editors are not really perfect
yet it would still be better to stick with SVG because it is an open
format.

> Unfortunately, a solution has been chosen that is harmful.

Yes. Although the point is not to harm anything. The point is to
restrict that further distribution and use of commercial programs in
open source projects.

If anyone can come up with a license that is legally sound I won't
hesitate to change the license. It appears that suse now has a lawyer in
working in development as well - I will ask him his opinion as well.

bye,
ken
-- 
Kenneth W. Wimer - SUSE Linux - Nuernberg, Germany
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"The Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board has determined that the
root cause for the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft was the failure
to use metric units" - NASA