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#1 2017-07-17 01:29:14

baltic
Member
Registered: 2017-07-17
Posts: 9

Icons, public domain code

Hi guys,

How do you install icons, if an app needs one? For now i just put them to (it's an svg icon)

/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/

If app is in public domain, what to show in the license field of PKGBUILD?

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#2 2017-07-17 03:07:25

mcmillan
Member
Registered: 2006-04-06
Posts: 737

Re: Icons, public domain code

All the packages I have that are public domain are stated to have custom licenses, with the custom license stating that it is in public domain

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#3 2017-07-17 03:21:49

headkase
Member
Registered: 2011-12-06
Posts: 1,975

Re: Icons, public domain code

"Public Domain" is: not a license.

Also, if you don't specifically disclaim things, like fitness for any particular purpose, and it turns out not to be (what program doesn't have bugs) then there is a question of legal liability.  I am not a lawyer, call yours for your specific case.

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#4 2017-07-17 11:21:04

Lone_Wolf
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From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: Icons, public domain code

baltic wrote:

How do you install icons, if an app needs one? For now i just put them to (it's an svg icon)

/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/

My personal preference is to put icons in /usr/share/pixmaps  , but your location is fine also .

Check https://specifications.freedesktop.org/ … ory_layout for details.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2017-07-17 11:34:50)


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#5 2017-07-17 11:31:04

baltic
Member
Registered: 2017-07-17
Posts: 9

Re: Icons, public domain code

headkase wrote:

"Public Domain" is: not a license.

That's what i was thinking too.

headkase wrote:

Also, if you don't specifically disclaim things, like fitness for any particular purpose, and it turns out not to be (what program doesn't have bugs) then there is a question of legal liability.  I am not a lawyer, call yours for your specific case.

Canadian courts and lawyers can kiss my commie ass wink

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Check /https://specifications.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/icon-theme-spec-latest.html#directory_layout for details.

Thanks for that! /usr/share/pixmaps is probably a better choice, since namcap gives an error:

E: Dependency hicolor-icon-theme detected and not included (needed for hicolor theme hierarchy)

Last edited by baltic (2017-07-17 11:36:42)

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#6 2017-07-17 12:04:07

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: Icons, public domain code

With respect to "public domain" I think the spirit of the law here is more important than the letter.  If the upstream author labeled it public domain, then clearly their intent was for it to be shared and used freely without restriction.  Where is the upstream link for us to see how they presented this?  Could you ask the upstream developer to offer some license options - they can put multiple licenses leaving it up to the user to decide (e.g., they could say public domain or licensed under MIT, BSD, WTFYL, and GPL).


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#7 2017-07-17 14:11:53

progandy
Member
Registered: 2012-05-17
Posts: 5,184

Re: Icons, public domain code

Trilby wrote:

With respect to "public domain" I think the spirit of the law here is more important than the letter.  If the upstream author labeled it public domain, then clearly their intent was for it to be shared and used freely without restriction.  Where is the upstream link for us to see how they presented this?  Could you ask the upstream developer to offer some license options - they can put multiple licenses leaving it up to the user to decide (e.g., they could say public domain or licensed under MIT, BSD, WTFYL, and GPL).

If the author really wishes to use "public domain" and not any other license, ask him if he can accept CC0.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#CC0
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Last edited by progandy (2017-07-17 14:19:10)


| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |

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#8 2017-07-17 15:17:57

baltic
Member
Registered: 2017-07-17
Posts: 9

Re: Icons, public domain code

Trilby wrote:

With respect to "public domain" I think the spirit of the law here is more important than the letter.  If the upstream author labeled it public domain, then clearly their intent was for it to be shared and used freely without restriction.  Where is the upstream link for us to see how they presented this?  Could you ask the upstream developer to offer some license options - they can put multiple licenses leaving it up to the user to decide (e.g., they could say public domain or licensed under MIT, BSD, WTFYL, and GPL).

I am the upstream developer. I wrote this thing  a few years ago. I've tried .deb publishing, when i was using ubuntu, but it was a nightmare. Same was the snappy (+glitchy as hell) So i didn't bother to publish it. PKGBUILD seems to be more user friendly. So i have decided to open source the thing, might be useful for others.
I don't really care much what license to release it under. I only prefer it to be as permissive as possible.
If it could be a public domain + something else, that's also fine. I dont expect much contributions anyway smile

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#9 2017-07-17 15:23:27

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: Icons, public domain code

baltic wrote:

I am the upstream developer.

Well then that makes this easy.  I'd suggest the MIT license.  It is very short and simple and among the most permissible licenses while also covering all the bases that people want covered in a license (BSD licenses also fit these criteria).  Though I suppose strictly speaking it cannot be public domain and given any other license.  In order to license something you need to claim ownership.  (Attempting to) release it to the public domain denies ownership and thus the right to license it.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#10 2017-07-17 15:54:32

baltic
Member
Registered: 2017-07-17
Posts: 9

Re: Icons, public domain code

Trilby wrote:

I'd suggest the MIT license.

It's good indeed, but requires to retain the license even in the binary form of the software. Or so i believe. I found from wiki:

The BSD, MIT, zlib/png and Python licenses are special cases and could not be included in the licenses package. For the sake of the license array, it is treated as a common license (license=('BSD'), license=('MIT'), license=('ZLIB')

So i'll go with ZLIB. Simple, integrated into Arch, and even more permissive.

Thanks everyone!

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#11 2017-07-18 15:09:37

eschwartz
Fellow
Registered: 2014-08-08
Posts: 4,097

Re: Icons, public domain code

That's just because all packages have to declare what license they are licensed under, and most licenses are installed as part of the "licenses" package, e.g. GPL, Apache, Creative Commons, etc.

But the BSD/IT licenses cannot be installed in the "licenses" package, simply because part of the license itself is the name of the copyright holder -- whereas e.g.  the GPL contains the same text all the time.

ZLIB shares that same problem, if having to install a single license file in the Arch package can be considered a problem.

...

On the topic of namcap, it often tells you useful bits of advice, but often it is wrong. In the case of hicolor-icon-theme IMHO it is very wrong, but whereas most namcap mistakes are simply because it often makes false positives, this one is just misguided intentions.

Also, namcap is hardly an official policy, it is just a useful tool to try to find automatic linting issues.
There is a reason that was a warning, not an error.

Last edited by eschwartz (2017-07-18 15:11:29)


Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)

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