August 2008 - Inkscape Board of Directors

The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by heathenx 12 Aug '08

12 Aug '08

I emailed Ted Gould a few days ago inquiring if it would be alright to use Inkscape icons in a promotional t-shirt for the 2008 Ohio LinuxFest. I wasn't sure who else to ask and since I just recently talked with Ted through an email on another matter I thought he might be the right guy. Ted suggested that I contact the Inkscape-board mailing list so here it goes. Below is my original text from the email that I sent Ted without his reply.: ################################################################################# Ted, I am not sure who else to ask from the Inkscape group. Perhaps you can help me with a question. Richard Querin and I run a website (screencasters.heathenx.org) that is dedicated to teaching the basics of Inkscape. We may not be the best teachers but it's all that we know how to do in terms to spreading the use of Inkscape. Anyway, I will be attending this years Ohio LinuxFest just as an attendee and what Richard and I wanted to do is print up a few t-shirts to give away in order to promote our website (and in turn promte Inkscape indirectly). We had a few concepts that are questionable in terms of legal use. We thought it would be neat to have a spoof of a t-shirt that is sold by Jinx. Instead of the game icons we would use Inkscape icons. Of course we wondered if it was morally and legally the right thing to do since we are not affiliated in any shape or form to the Inkscape project. I attached an image of the concept for you to review. Can you give us any input here? We certainly do not want to upset the very project that we both love. Abandoning this t-shirt design is not the slightest problem. We have plenty more ideas that would not infringe on Inkscape. Thank-you. Regards, heathenx ################################################################################# The last thing that Richard and I want to do is offend the Inkscape project. We certainly want to play by the rules. So what does everyone think? Is this okay? Ted suggested that I might have to offer up the svg file that is attached if we decide to use this t-shirt design. I don't have a problem with that. I would appreciate your input. Regards, heathenx PS. Again, we intend to give a limited amount of these t-shirts away at the show. We will not be charging for them. However, we may end up setting up a CafePress store in the future and may or may not offer this specific shirt for sale...if any of that matters.

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Re: [Inkscape-board] The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by Bryce Harrington 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

I think that should be fine. It looks like you're using the toolbar icons, which are GPL'd and not trademarked in any way. (In fact, I'm not sure they're even particular to Inkscape.) Selling the shirts is fine too - the GPL doesn't forbid charging money for GPL'd stuff (thus why Linux distros can sell CD's of GPL software) so there's no moral or legal issue at all. If you want to be 100% legit, just post the SVG of your t-shirt design on your website licensed under GPL and you should be 100% fine. Bryce On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 09:07:47PM -0400, heathenx wrote: > I emailed Ted Gould a few days ago inquiring if it would be alright to > use Inkscape icons in a promotional t-shirt for the 2008 Ohio LinuxFest. > I wasn't sure who else to ask and since I just recently talked with Ted > through an email on another matter I thought he might be the right guy. > Ted suggested that I contact the Inkscape-board mailing list so here it > goes. Below is my original text from the email that I sent Ted without > his reply.: > > ################################################################################# > > Ted, > > I am not sure who else to ask from the Inkscape group. Perhaps you can help me with a question. > > Richard Querin and I run a website (screencasters.heathenx.org) that is > dedicated to teaching the basics of Inkscape. We may not be the best > teachers but it's all that we know how to do in terms to spreading the > use of Inkscape. Anyway, I will be attending this years Ohio LinuxFest > just as an attendee and what Richard and I wanted to do is print up a few > t-shirts to give away in order to promote our website (and in turn promte > Inkscape indirectly). We had a few concepts that are questionable in > terms of legal use. We thought it would be neat to have a spoof of a > t-shirt that is sold by Jinx. Instead of the game icons we would use > Inkscape icons. Of course we wondered if it was morally and legally the > right thing to do since we are not affiliated in any shape or form to the > Inkscape project. I attached an image of the concept for you to review. > Can you give us any input here? We certainly do not want to upset the > very project that we both love. Abandoning this t-shirt design is not the > slightest problem. We have plenty more ideas that would not infringe on > Inkscape. > > Thank-you. > > Regards, > > heathenx > > ################################################################################# > > The last thing that Richard and I want to do is offend the Inkscape > project. We certainly want to play by the rules. So what does everyone > think? Is this okay? Ted suggested that I might have to offer up the svg > file that is attached if we decide to use this t-shirt design. I don't > have a problem with that. > > I would appreciate your input. > > Regards, > > heathenx > > PS. Again, we intend to give a limited amount of these t-shirts away at > the show. We will not be charging for them. However, we may end up > setting up a CafePress store in the future and may or may not offer this > specific shirt for sale...if any of that matters.

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Re: [Inkscape-board] The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by Bryce Harrington 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 04:21:48PM -0500, Aaron Spike wrote: > Ted Gould wrote: > > I have no problem with this, and I think the shirts are cool. The only > > requirement for me is that we need someway for me to order one ;) > > > > +1 > > I'm +1 too. But what's the licensing on our icons? I seem to remember a > mailing list thread about that. GPL'd, same as the source code. (Anything can be put under the GPL despite the code-specific wording of the license - the G stands for General after all.) So draw the analogy to source code - someone is free to reuse part of the inkscape codebase for any purpose including charging for it so long as they abide by the GPL - the derivative needs to be GPL'd and the source needs to be available. Bryce

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