What are the permitted uses for these icons?

July 18, 2008 12:55 PM

Can anyone explain the use limitations for these icons? I am completely lost in the legalese.

What are the permitted uses for these icons? What are the limitations? Basically, I want to know what I have to do to use these icons without getting into trouble.

Also, can anyone point me to icons that are as big and stunning and cover such a breadth of subjects? I am open to licensing if necessary.

posted by cuban link flooded jesus to Law & Government (6 answers total)

They are licensed under the LGPL, which is an astonishingly poor choice for icons, as it is meant to be a license for software. It is unclear, then, what "source code" or "library" mean in this context. I guess, technically, that the SVG files may be considered "source code."

In any event, I am not a lawyer, but the common understanding of the LGPL amongst software developers is thus:

1. You can freely redistribute the software, provided that you include a copy of the LGPL, given attribution to the original author, and allow access to the source code for at most a nominal fee.

2. You can freely distribute modified versions of the software, provided that your modifications are also licensed under the LGPL, plus everything in paragraph 1.

3. Programs which merely use the LGPL'd software as a library need not be licensed under the LGPL. This is the primary distinction between the LGPL and the GPL.

Note that none of this prevents you from charging for copies of the program so long as you fulfill the other requirements.

As an example, I want to write a calculator program, but I just want to write the graphical interface, not the actual calculating parts. I might use an LGPL'd math library in connection with my interface. As long as I do not modify the math library, I do not have to provide access to my calculator program's source code. If I did modify the math library (say, to add a new function), then I would have to provide access to the source code of my modified library, but my interface code could still stay proprietary.

So, I think the icon creator's intent was to allow people to use the icons in applications without having to license the applications under the LGPL. But, if you distribute modified versions of the icons, then the modified versions of the icons only must be licensed under the LGPL.

If you are still in doubt, just contact the author about what you have in mind.
posted by jedicus at 1:25 PM on July 18, 2008 [2 favorites]

These icons are under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). From what I understand, that means you can use these icons in your app, as long as you credit the author, specify that it uses the LGPL, and include a copy of the LGPL in your package.

The "Lesser" portion of the GPL means that your app does not need to be free (either $0 or open source) to use the icons. The original GPL would force your app to use the same "free software license".

But, if you go to their license webpage (http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/?action=license), the title of the page reads "The Crystal Project are released under LGPL.", but the text below states it's the "GNU General Public License" (no "lesser"). These licenses are supposed to have a version number as well, which is missing.

Anyway, after all that rambling, I suggest you write to the author to have him/her clear it up themself :)
posted by jsmith77 at 1:41 PM on July 18, 2008

Yeah, jedicus said it better than me. The LPGL makes direct references to "source code", which does not make much sense when you're dealing with graphics.
posted by jsmith77 at 1:43 PM on July 18, 2008

Response by poster: I guess I should mention:

I would like to use these icons in a web based software program. No altering of them other than size or file type.

If I give credit in a references section of the site and/or the source code where they appear, would that be enough?
posted by cuban link flooded jesus at 1:51 PM on July 18, 2008

If I give credit in a references section of the site and/or the source code where they appear, would that be enough?

One correction to the comments above: there is no requirement to give attribution to the author.
posted by yath at 2:48 PM on July 18, 2008

I really think you should ask the author, since you have a very specific question. Either ask the author or a GPL-savvy lawyer, anyway.

yath, in this case the Asker will probably need to include attribution. From the most relevant section of the license on the author's site:

As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.

You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply a copy of this License. If the work during execution displays copyright notices, you must include the copyright notice for the Library among them, as well as a reference directing the user to the copy of this License.

So the Asker must give "prominent notice" that the icons are used, and if he or she includes a copyright notice anywhere on the site, then he or she will need to include a copyright notice for the icons.

There are additional requirements that can be most easily satisfied by linking back to the author's web site.

Also, the license on the icon web site is the LGPL v2.1.
posted by jedicus at 3:06 PM on July 18, 2008