Clarify whether attribution is required
Nateowami opened this issue · comments
As I see it, the most confusing part of the MIT license as it applies to this project, is this line:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
So what counts as copies or substantial portions? Suppose you take a few icons and add them to a webpage. It appears, then, that attribution is required. But what kind of attribution? On the page, or in the code? Is the software just the code, or also the rendered icons?
I think it's for this reason that most open fonts use the SIL Open Font License, including Font Awesome, though Font Awesome no longer requires attribution.
I believe the MIT license could hold some people back from using the icons, even in ways that the author would deem acceptable, simply due to ambiguity of the license. Personally, I would favor an attribution-not-required license, simply because it's not nice to have to make sure you have attribution if you just copy an icon or two into a page (attribution in the source code is a different matter; I don't really have an opinion).
Very nice icons by the way. I really love being able to copy a couple lines instead of adding a dependency.
@Nateowami Good points. While this project will remain under the MIT license for now, attribution is encouraged but not required.
I added a line to the README to clarify.
@danklammer Thanks. That's a helpful change.
That line is known as the Notice Condition. If you're interested in understanding the MIT license Kyle's writing is worth your time. Here's an excerpt from the Warranty Disclaimer section:
Lawyers have long suffered under the delusion that writing anything in ALL-CAPS meets the conspicuous requirement. That isn’t true.
While this project will remain under the MIT license for now, attribution is encouraged but not required.
That's thoughtful, but not legally binding. My suggestion would be to change to an unconditional license such as the 0BSD or Unlicense.