Should OpenMoji change the license from CC BY-SA to CC BY?

[b-g]

It seems there is a growing interest in a more permissive license e.g. changing from CC BY-SA to CC BY, see e.g. #462.

Dear OpenMoji community what are you opinions on this?

The way I understand it is basically:

CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) // What OpenMoji is currently using

• Attribution Requirement: Similar to CC BY, users must give appropriate credit to the original creator, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
• Use and Modification: Users are free to copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as they attribute the original creation.
• ShareAlike Condition: One significant difference from CC BY is that any derivative works (i.e., works that are based on or adapted from the original work) must be licensed under the same or a compatible license as the original. This means that if you create something new using a work licensed under CC BY-SA, you must also share your new work under the same CC BY-SA license.

CC BY (Attribution)

• Attribution Requirement: The primary condition of the CC BY license is that users must give appropriate credit to the original creator, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
• Use and Modification: Users are free to copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as they attribute the original creation.
• Freedom: This license provides maximum freedom to users to use and adapt the work as they see fit, as long as proper credit is given.

Summary of Differences

• Flexibility: CC BY offers more flexibility because it only requires attribution and allows the work to be used and modified in any way, including the creation of derivative works under any license the user chooses.
• Copyleft Requirement: CC BY-SA includes a "copyleft" requirement that derivative works must be shared under the same or compatible license, ensuring that the freedoms granted by the original license are preserved in derivative works.

In essence, the key difference is that CC BY-SA enforces the sharing of derivative works under the same licensing terms, while CC BY allows for more freedom in how derivative works are licensed.

[RealityRipple]

Personal opinion: share-alike is for finished projects, not components.

Imagine if a dairy farmer could tell a baker which recipes could be used when the baker was using milk from that farmer's cows.
That's a component's license exerting too much control over the finished project.

Compare that to, say, a recipe for a food related to a traditional pot-luck event or religious function. The recipe may specifically say not to sell the finished product as it would be counter to the tradition associated with that product.
In my opinion, that's an acceptable level of control exerted by the license, preventing attempts to circumvent the intention of the rule (to prevent the sale of what's supposed to be a communal or altruistic dish) while still allowing for variations to be made.

[xavizardKnight]

Relicensing an already existing project is tricky and may be problematic.

For what I've heard on other projects and according to questions and answers online (like this one: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/33/how-can-a-project-be-relicensed), depending on what licence and what type of project:

1. Some people say that for a licence change, permission is needed from absolutely all contributors, as all contributors agreed to the currently-existing licence when pushing their contributions to the repo.
2. Other people say that permission from everyone who contributed is not necessary, but is only required from those who contributed the most; in OpenMoji's case, I assume this would be the people with portraits in the About page.
3. And other people say that no permission from contributors is necessary, the only necessary thing is for the copyright holders of the repo (normally, the maintainers) to agree with the new licence.

Which one of the three above is the right one for OpenMoji's case? I don't know. But if I would have to bet on one, I'll say the second one.

I assume the "commercial use" is still allowed, right? As in the sharealike virality doesn't apply if an emoji is used untouched in a webpage/app/game if properly attributed, if an edit to an emoji is made then the sharealike does apply, as you've mentioned in #462. It's not mentioned anywhere on your CC-BY-SA bulletpoints of the starting message of this issue.

I personally agree that CC-BY-SA might be a bit restrictive for a project like OpenMoji, which is meant to be used in other projects. Other licences like CC-BY or MIT might be a better fit (although continue reading for a possible better licence). The Sharealike condition of the CC-BY-SA is quite confusing in terms of what counts as derivative works (see #462 again).

But I think that before relicensing this repo (if it's even possible to do so, see my points above), we should first try to better explain in both the website and the repo readme the peculiarity that OpenMoji's CC-BY-SA licence allows commercial use of untouched emojis with only attribution. There's a link in the FAQ page that links to issue #462, but clearly this isn't enough, as more related questions have been appearing recently.

I believe you've mentioned in issue #462 that one of the reasons that OpenMoji is licensed with the CC-BY-SA licence is that you want that any modification to the emojis (like if someone creates an emoji with parts of OpenMoji emojis) to also be CC-BY-SA to ensure credit is given. That's a valid and an understandable reason.

If you are open to more licences, please take the Apache 2 Licence into consideration (https://choosealicense.com/licenses/apache-2.0/).
As far as I know, using something with an Apache 2 Licence requires only attribution (and allows commercial use), but modifications to it (say someone creates a new emoji using OpenMoji parts) will have to be publicly released with the same Apache licence. This sounds pretty much like what @b-g wanted to accomplish with the "CC-BY-SA with commercial usage".

I don't know if the Apache 2 licence is optimal for non-code projects, although I think the MIT Licence also isn't and, despite that, is used for other emoji packs; so, I don't think this shouldn't be a problem. Also, I don't know the entirety of features (and possible drawbacks?) of the Apache 2 Licence by memory.
Nevertheless, this licence is something worth investigating.

Oh wow, I'm writing a lot (as usual with me… xD). Let me end; In short:

• I think that better messaging on the website / repo description should be tried before doing a repo licence change.
• If considering a licence change, I agree that CC-BY-4.0 sounds good. Although, other licences like the Apache 2 should be considered as they may fit better this project.
• In case that you need my permission as a contributor, I agree with relicensing all my contributions to the new CC-BY-4.0 licence if it ends up happening (or to any other new licence you consider better fits this project). Use this message as a proof of said authorization. 👍

[brettchalupa]

I really appreciate the OpenMoji project and this discussion happening in the open.

I've been trying to find permissive emoji to use for an open source website and came across OpenMoji and was confused by the license terms and a bit deterred from using the icons due to the sharealike clause. When I read the text of the CC BY-SA license, the ambiguity of whether or not the project the emoji are used in needs to be the same project makes me worry I'll violate the license if the website is also not CC BY-SA. I've read through #462 which is helpful, but I'm not a lawyer and this is all a bit unclear still.

My personal opinion is that for something like an icon set, for it to be used far and wide with confidence, CC BY would be more useful and clear. There's credit given without any question of whether or not the work using the icons has to have the same terms. It'd at least make it easier to use OpenMoji with confidence for my usecase.

[s-light]

You can check out how kicad library license:
https://www.kicad.org/libraries/license/

Libraries License

The KiCad libraries are licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 License, with the following exception:

To the extent that the creation of electronic designs that use 'Licensed Material' can be considered to be 'Adapted Material', then the copyright holder waives article 3 of the license with respect to these designs and any generated files which use data provided as part of the 'Licensed Material'.

Maybe that is some way to go..

[nataliakeniganti]

Add Emoji 15.1

[xavizardKnight]

Hello @b-g! Now that the summer holidays are (unfortunately) well-over, have there been any more news on anything related with this possible licence change?

[b-g]

Hi @carlinmack @dnlutz any thoughts on this? Would be nice to decided this for the soon upcoming 15.1 release.

[carlinmack]

Hi :)

I would be in favour of changing the license

I attended Wikimania this year that had people from Creative Commons in attendance. At this presentation they only recommended licensing via CC-0 and CC-BY. One member of the audience asked why not CC-BY-SA? A lawyer from CC answered the question stating that when you license with ShareAlike it is essentially impossible to reuse the content if you want to combine it with something licensed using a different ShareAlike license

I wish I could remember where I read this as they said it better, but I remember reading a blog post from a museum about how they decided that instead of applying a CC-BY license, they instead licensed CC-0 and asked for attribution. They found that overwhelmingly people respected the wishes and weren't discouraged by not knowing how to properly attribute via the CC-BY requirements. In our case I think we could apply CC-BY and have a section for emoji libraries based on OpenMoji where we ask that they don't apply a restrictive license.

In my personal opinion, I think that 99.99% of licenses are not enforced and at the end of the day you are trusting that people respect your wishes. How you communicate those wishes could be via legal or social means.

Also, I'm happy to re-license my contributions as in the public domain but I do appreciate being credited :P

[dnlutz]

Hello Carlin, Thanks for your assessment, I would follow your advice.