[theme-reviewers] GPL-compatible social media icon sets

[Kirk Wight]

I have to disagree. Heck, I'll even call this a "slippery slope".

I would love to see all assets, scripts etc not created by the submitter to
be explicitly released under a GPL-compatible license listed on the Theme
Review Codex page. In turn, that license must be stated in readme.txt, and
any submitter should be able to provide a link to that license upon
reviewer request. If a submitter feels a license should be included on the
approved list, a reviewer can evaluate and make a recommendation.

It's very common to have these situations of "oh, they said we can use it
for whatever", in which a license may or may not have even been explicitly
declared, and it becomes the reviewer's duty to try and track down a
license and/or make an interpretation of whatever comes up. It becomes a
drain on reviewer resources, instead of a proper responsibility of the
submitter to meet requirements.

The wordpress.org repository is for GPL-compatible themes, and anyone
downloading these themes should be confident that that's what they are
getting. If someone insists on using assets that are vaguely licensed, or
fall under the "sure, yeah, whatever" umbrella, they are free to release
that theme however they choose, somewhere else.



On 17 May 2012 11:42, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:

> Here is the exact wording of the license, from that link:
>
> License Info
>
> Free to use for whatever purposes. If you use these icons, an optional
> link tohttp://icondock.com would be appreciated. Thank you.
>
>
> This doesn't *explicitly *state the the work is released under a
> GPL-compatible license terms, but "whatever purposes" does implicitly
> include use, modification, and redistribution.
>
> I would be in favor of considering these as "GPL-compatible".
>
> Chip
>
>
> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:09 AM, Doug Stewart <zamoose at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Chip:
>> He linked it up-thread.
>> http://icondock.com/free/vector-social-media-icons
>>
>> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net>
>> wrote:
>> > Bruce,
>> >
>> > Can you link to the actual license wording/text?
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > Chip
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Bruce Wampler <weavertheme at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> For what it worth, the people at IconDock sent this reply to a query
>> about
>> >> possibly putting a more explicit license on their social icon set:
>> >>
>> >> Hi Bruce,
>> >>
>> >> It means 100% free for any purpose. You may distribute or resell them
>> as
>> >> you like.
>> >>
>> >> Nick
>> >>
>> >> I personally think the license on the site also makes this clear, and
>> that
>> >> it meets all the intent of GPL.
>> >>
>> >> I realize that doesn't make it GPL-Compatible for the repository, but
>> it
>> >> does, to me, make it a safe set to use. Perhaps it could be provided
>> via a
>> >> user initiated upload or non-repository hosted plugin. It really is
>> nice
>> >> looking, and complete, and provides what is clearly a legal to use
>> >> alternative.
>> >>
>> >> Since there seems to be such a demand for a nice set, perhaps there
>> could
>> >> be a special ruling made for this particular set to allow it into the
>> >> repository?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 6:30 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 10:34 PM, Syahir Hakim <
>> khairulsyahir at gmail.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> > OK, so the bottom line is can we bundle these icon sets without any
>> >>> > pre-made
>> >>> > licences, but with the express intent that they're free for any use,
>> >>> > with
>> >>> > WP.org repository-hosted themes?
>> >>>
>> >>> If you don't *know* that it is GPL-Compatible, then you cannot use it
>> >>> in any code on WordPress.org, period.
>> >>>
>> >>> -Otto
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> >>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> >>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Doug
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>
>
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