Re: Applying the GPL to Artwork

["Jakub Steiner" <jimmac gmail com>]

Hi Thos,
an excellent summary. I always wanted to point people to a document
like this. Of course it would be great to run it down by a lawyer.
Some notes:

>  Run Time Substitution
>  ---------------------
>
>  If the icon is not required to allow the application to function (i.e.
>  can be substituted at run time and is not distributed with the
>  application) then the license does not apply. For example, this means
>  that users would not be violating the GPL if a proprietary application
>  uses a GPL icon theme.
>
>  However, if a non-GPL application references an icon name from
>  gnome-icon-theme, this should be considered as linking (as described
>  above).

This section is somewhat confusing in that it contradicts in the last
paragraph what it said at the beginning. I think what we want to
communicate in the last bit is that a GPL-incompatible application is
allowed to look up an icon that may end up being taken from a GPL icon
theme as long as that app doesn't rely on it. Either by supplying the
icon itself, providing a fallback or using another, compatibly
licensed theme. A non-GPL application cannot _rely_ on a GPL theme.


>
>  Websites
>  --------
>
>  Websites are more tricky than applications under GPL v2, because the
>  machine readable application is very rarely distributed.
>
>  I would like to suggest (as a minimum requirement) that if GPL artwork
>  is used on a website, then proper attribution of the author and a
>  statement of the license for the artwork is available in an appropriate
>  place in the website.

This is also the most common question from people - am I allowed to
use a GPL icon on a website? This one I'd really like to see evaluated
by a lawyer.

cheers

-- 
Jakub Steiner <jimmac gmail com>
http://jimmac.musichall.cz