gnome-themes and licensing

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

With 2.16 now underway, I thought it was about time to give the 
gnome-themes module a bit of a revamp. However, many of todays artists 
want to use licenses other than the GPL to distribute their work (for 
example, the Creative Commons "By Attribution" license[1], or the Free 
Art license[2]). This would mean that parts of the gnome-themes module 
would no longer be GPL or LGPL. What I need to know is what impact this 
would have on distributors, and on the module's status in GNOME.

Personally, I think it's understandable that artists may choose not to 
distribute their work under the (L)GPL, which is primarily a license for 
software. As long as the license they choose upholds the values of Free 
Software, I don't see it as a problem. However, I know there have been 
various lengthy discussions elsewhere about the status of the Creative 
Commons licenses, so I would like to have some advice before continuing.

-Thomas


[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
[2] http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/