[ gpsdrive ] License of map icons

[Hamish]

Carsten wrote:
> I take part in a student's software project of my university
> where we have to develop a navigation software for mobile devices
> with Java ME. We have to visualize different POI and I would like
> to use your map icons.
> 
> My problem might be the license. I have read .\README, .\COPYING and
> .\data\map-icons\README but I'm not sure under which license the
> icons are published. Probably our project is never released to the
> public but I just want to be prepared for the case. I guess I'm
> not allowed to use GPL pictures in a non GPL-program, so I probably
> need public domain pictures.


The GPL only comes into effect if you wish to distribute your program to
others. For internal use only, you can do whatever you like with it.

If you include GPL parts and wish for your project to go public, your public
distribution will need to be GPL as well. That's the cost of using the free
labor of others; or put another way, the reward to those providing the free
labor. If it is a case of your code never being released to the public or being
released to the public as GPL, where's be value in death of the code winning?

Or do you have a small hope that you can sell the code to a big company for
millions? note if you are the sole copyright holder you can still do that,
relicensing/dual-licensing all the code (sans icons) and not releasing future
code; but you can never revoke GPL from already distributed GPL stuff. Probably
not a big deal to lose the icons in that case, megacorp probably has its own
artists on contract. Unlike source code the icons are much easier to rip out
years later.

I have only contributed about 0.1% of the icons, and that under the assumption
of the GPL, but I defer to the major contributors to comment on the license
they prefer.


Hamish



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