Re: Dia Image Copyrights

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 13:32, Cyrille Chepelov wrote:
> Le Mon, Jun 07, 2004, Ã  10:35:01AM +0200, Alexander Larsson a écrit:
> > On Sun, 2004-06-06 at 13:08, pg smith wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > Firstly, thanks for the excellent program, it works very nicely indeed. 
> > > I'm in the process of writing a book, and would like to use Dia for 
> > > creating the illustrations. I'm aware that Dia is GPL'd, but my publisher 
> > > has asked me just to double check that the clip art images it uses are 
> > > also free from restrictions on reproduction (Dia will of course be 
> > > credited in the book).
> > 
> > I'm not sure if we have this actually written down anywhere, but that
> > sure was the intention. I've cc:ed the mailing list where the current
> > developers hang out so that they can confirm their parts, but for sure
> > all the graphical details that I've written are free to use in
> > publishing etc.
> 
> Did I let this request slip through? I then must hereby apologise for
> this. I just keep adding stuff to keep me busy, and my personal loadavg is well
> into the three digits now (or something similar).
> 
> In any case, I second what Alex says, with respect to what I have
> contributed.
> 
> > We should probably have this written down in a prominent place on the
> > web page though.
> 
> Yep. We could make it formal by relicensing as LGPL or something more
> appropriate, or if we can just track back every contributor, get a nod
> to put a (libc|gcc)-like exemption (like "if you embed the shapes into
> another diagram editor, then GPL applies. If you embed the shapes into
> diagrams you publish or otherwise use, then you can, no strings
> attached").

I'm in favor of the second solution, and I got an email somewhere from
the FSF legals saying that that's probably the best way to go.  Notice
that regardless of which solution we chose, we would still have to track
back every contributor, as it's the license on their copyrighted code
that would change.

-Lars