
SVG Icons Using MIT License - jhabdas
https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/issues/214
======
tiborsaas
The sane solution if one wants to play fairly is to create a licenses page on
the webpage or app and mention the source of the icons and other OS software
used.

This way you are acknowledging the license and you distribute it too with the
copy.

This is how the YouTube app does it for example on Android. Settings/About/OS
licenses.

~~~
8ig8
What about using licenses.txt?

Along the lines of: security.txt, robots.txt, humans.txt.

~~~
tiborsaas
That's a cool idea, never seen that, but after quite a while of googling
here's one on the root domain:

[https://walltime.info/licenses.txt](https://walltime.info/licenses.txt)

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lukeholder
I am partial to the quality of [https://svgporn.com/](https://svgporn.com/)
they hand-write the SVG code for small file size.

~~~
quickthrower2
sfw?

~~~
sus_007
totally :D

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yellowapple
Given the actual condition being imposed on users of MIT/Expat-licensed
assets:

    
    
        The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
        copies or substantial portions of the Software.
    

I'm failing to see what the hold-up is here.

\- If it's an SVG file, what's wrong with including the license text as a
comment?

\- If it's a raster image, what's wrong with including the license text in the
metadata?

The way I'm reading this, as long as the license text is somehow embedded in
the asset - whether or not it's actually visible to someone viewing it as an
image - then that fulfills the terms of the license, no?

If such an embedded license is sufficient, then I fail to see what the problem
is. Is it just file size? Are these people really _so_ averse to content
creators being credited for their work that said consumers of said works
consider embedded attribution/licensing unacceptable (and why)?

If such an embedded license is _not_ sufficient, then why is it insufficient?

Obligatory: I ain't a lawyer. Given the sorts of quibbling that seems to be
happening over a three-paragraph license that's ubiquitous in the world of
software, I don't envy the actual lawyers one bit.

~~~
myhf
> Is it just file size?

The stated purpose of the project is "Icons under 1KB each". So embedding a
1KB license in each one would defeat the purpose.

Even if file size is not the main goal, embedding metadata could be self-
defeating in other ways. If the license requires making the license available
to end-users, would that prevent the use of asset pipeline optimization tools?
(The motivation for using a permissive license is often to enable
compatibility with general-purpose tools.) If the license only requires making
the license available to maintainers, then why embed it in the first place?

~~~
yellowapple
My question is also about the other various instances of objections to MIT-
licensed assets that were raised (i.e. in the article linked in the issue, as
well as in other related issues). You're right that this specific case
justifies minimal file sizes; maybe a modified/clarified license that only
requires the copyright statement and a URL pointing to the license would be a
better fit?

Re: asset pipelines, those would only be an issue if one of the
"optimizations" is to strip metadata, which sounds an awful lot like a
premature optimization to me.

On another note: most compression algorithms in vogue today can shrink the
Expat license to less than ⅔ the plaintext size when base64-encoded. That's
still hefty in the context of this specific project, but does still
technically satisfy the letter (albeit probably not the spirit) of the
license's requirements. Compressing the whole SVG file could almost certainly
allow the icons to stay under 1kb, at least until decompressed (and an in-
memory representation of that SVG file doesn't usually need to preserve
comments).

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edent
I run this repo, but didn't open the comment. Curious to know why others
think.

I chose MIT out of laziness, and because that's what done of the source files
were using. I've never heard of the "Blue Oak" licence the comment refers to.

Lots of people and companies have contributed to the icon set over the last
couple of years without issue.

I'm of the opinion that having an acknowledgements section of an app / website
is sufficient.

I suppose I could add some metadata to each file, but that would inflate most
of them to over 1KB.

~~~
franciscop
> "I'm of the opinion"

Please if you are working/setting licenses, make sure it's not just an opinion
and that there's enough data/you do enough research to back it up. As
explained in many sites, MIT for code, CC for art.

~~~
edent
Are SVGs code or art?

~~~
jhabdas
It depends. SVGs could be both if, for example, they were hand-crafted. Code
itself often is art because it requires creative skill and imagination to
produce.

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sago
How can these be licensed in any way, when the artwork is of trademarked
logos? Genuine question. Aren't you entirely relying on the fact that the
owners of the copyright of the logos benefits from your use and are unlikely
to chase? I mean, if I decided my project was compatible with Coca-Cola and
slapped the Coke logo on it, they'd come after me, no? Even if I had redrawn
the logo myself.

~~~
Uehreka
(The usual: IANAL)

Trademark is different from copyright in that you can have a trademarked logo
on your webpage (or in any other work) as long as you aren’t implying
association with the owner of the mark. Trademark owners can’t come after you
for, say, writing a scathing critique of their product that includes their
logo for reference. But they _can_ come after you if you add their logo to a
list of “companies using this library!” without their permission.

There are tons of questions I admittedly have about why reality shows blur out
logos (I imagine they’re avoiding creating the impression that a brand has
endorsed the crazy stuff happening on the show through product placement) and
why developers can include the github logo in reference to the github repo for
a project when neither the author nor the project are associated with the
github brand (my guess is that there’s a carve-out for that sort of thing,
since github wants people to do this as much as possible).

~~~
jhabdas
Aside: You don't need to inform people you're not a lawyer. But, if you were,
you would need to tell them "I am not _your_ lawyer" unless, in fact, you
were.

~~~
sago
My favourite blurb along those lines, from a forum, "I am a lawyer. But I'm
not your lawyer. And, like contraceptives: someone else's lawyer won't protect
you."

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hardmaru
For content, rather than code, I generally prefer to use one of the creative
commons licenses.

[https://creativecommons.org/share-your-
work/](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/)

~~~
metaphor
How would you differentiate _content_ from _code_ when the thing in question
is as meta as SVG?

~~~
tingletech
If the line is really that grey, dual license MIT/CC0?

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wodenokoto
In such a case, where SVG markup code is MIT licensed, would a generated png
count as the compiled binary?

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jhabdas
the link stopped working. here's the link:
[https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/issues/214](https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons/issues/214)

