Re: [ubuntu-art] Ubuntu UI kit
On 08/02/2012 07:44 AM, Mirek2 wrote: Thanks for the replies. The SVG was done from scratch, but it aims to copy the exact look of the Ubuntu Ambiance theme, which I'm sure there's some copyright on. Unfortunately, I don't know the license it's under nor the contributors. Ideally, though, with Canonical's permission, I'd like to license it as permissively as possible, to encourage the widest adoption. Is there an e-mail address I could use to contact someone from Canonical's design team directly? I was very curious about this, so I ran it by a lawyer friend. It depends on the country that you're in, but copyright may not apply here. While you've attempted to create a work which closely matches the appearance of elements of the Ambiance theme, you've done so in a new medium and made use of a novel layout. Generally, just because something looks like something else doesn't make it a derivative work. Intent matters a lot too. This is why you can copyright Harry Potter, but not, a wizard boy goes to school and has many adventures. Moreover, the ability to copyright all elements of a design is highly contentious and not recognized in a lot of countries and jurisdictions. (I know, you've explicitly stated you wish to clone Ambiance, which makes this a derivative work, but I'm trying to make a larger point.) In this case, what you're looking at is trademark, which has a whole different set of guidelines. Canonical has pretty clear about how they wish to see Ambiance used (see https://launchpad.net/light-themes and http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy). This was taken from their website: Ambiance is licensed under: Creative Commons - Attribution Share Alike, Other/Open Source (Unless otherwise indicated, artwork is available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license v3.0 or any later version. To comply with this license, you need to: 1.) Acknowledge your UI kit is a derivative work of Ambiance and provide appropriate attribution 2.) Be willing to share it with those who would like to further build on your work, and allow them the right to do so as well. You could even charge for it, if you wanted (again, not a factor, just a general point). For further questions, see the urls I provided above. If you wish to touch base with the design team (though it's not clear that they are the responsible parties for Ambiance), you can reach through the Canonical Design site: http://design.canonical.com/ If unable to help, they would probably be able to point you in the right direction. Best of luck and thank you for the kit. I'm sure it will be very helpful to other designers. I've already been able to use it in mock-ups for a project I'm working on now. Cheers, Rob Oakes -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
[ubuntu-art] Layout Examples for Book on Open Soure Publishing
Dear Ubuntu Artwork Team, I am currently working on a book about writing and publishing using open source tools. The book includes two chapters on visual communication which cover Scribus and Inkscape. As part of these chapters, I would like to include examples of professional quality work. These include newsletters, magazines, book spreads, posters, illustrations, and others. The examples should: 1) Beautify the final volume and showcase examples of graphic communication 2) Demonstrate that open source tools can create high quality 3) Provide templates and finished layouts that can be distributed both with and separately from the book (the files will be licensed under LGPL, MIT or Creative Commons) to help people master the programs. (For more information on what I want to accomplish with the examples, see this article: http://blog.oak-tree.us/index.php/2010/09/01/awesome-examples.) Naturally, I've raided my own portfolio to do this, but any book with the work of a single person is at an inherent disadvantage. (Which is a way of saying that it's boring.) Which brings me to the reason that I am writing. I wanted to see if there are examples of promotional materials, newsletters, posters, or templates that might be appropriate to include in the book from the Ubuntu project? I've already looked at the examples on the Share Ubuntu website, and found an option that might work. Are there other locations that I might check out where the work is available under permissive licenses? The work doesn't have to be related to Ubuntu or free-software. Any example of graphic communication (regardless of source) would be appropriate. I am more interested in inspiring and showing solid design principles than advertising for a particular product (even something as wonderful as open source). These examples from my portfolio would all fit within the scope of the chapter: http://blog.oak-tree.us/index.php/2010/11/29/kde02 http://blog.oak-tree.us/index.php/2010/10/06/formalism http://blog.oak-tree.us/index.php/2010/08/21/modern-templates Alternatively, would members of the team be willing to craft templates/layouts which could be used to illustrate a particular principle? (The differences between a column grid or modular grid, for example.) If you have works that are part of a personal portfolio, those might be used as well. (As long as you hold copyright to the layout and other assets.) In addition to creating examples for the book, I also want to contribute back to the respective upstream projects. For example, brochures would be sent to the Scribus project as templates.** For this reason, I would prefer that all contributions be licensed under permissive terms (Public Domain, Creative Commons, LGPL). There are few sources which provide examples and templates for open source projects. I'm hoping that I can use this book as a way of plugging that need. If you have interest in contributing, please let me know. I can be reached either on the list, or via email at rob.oa...@oak-tree.us. Most Sincerely, Rob Oakes Oak-Tree Engineering www.oak-tree.us * The book is set to be published next year by rapidBooks Ltd. ** I understand that this may be impossible in many instances. In those cases, I would be happy to only include the work in the book only and not add the assets to the associated files. This would act as a way of preserving copyright protections. My preference, though, is for examples that can be incorporated as templates and donated back to the respective projects. -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
Re: [ubuntu-art] Language barrier for Participation - was Re: Artwork Team Logo - Submissions due today!
Hi Leandro, Thanks for sharing some of your thoughts. This has been a very interesting thread. > Yes, and some of us do. But the problem is when we want to 'push our work > upstream' to the global community. All the process, teams and tools are > English centric (maybe SU being one of the few exceptions). While I empathize with your concerns, I'm not sure that this a solvable problem. Contributor materials and instructions can be translated, but for collaboration to happen, people have to share a common tongue. For centuries, this was Latin. Now, it happens to be English. It makes sense that Ubuntu (and other open source projects) would use the lingua franca of science, technology and business. It prevents misunderstanding and disagreements. For the past year or so, I've led a project that creates a backup program. I've received contributions from people in Italy, Russia, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Mexico. That kind of international collaboration would be impossible if we didn't all speak English. Google translate can only get you so far. > It's just not about translations. It's more about process and tools. Perhaps there might be ways to mitigate the difficulties for those without English speaking members? Maybe the translation team could help LOCOs prepare their applications, for example. But language barriers aren't going away. There isn't any process or tool that can replace the need for people to communicate. Nor is it realistic for upstream to master all of the languages of downstream. Like most downstream projects, upstream tends to be idea heavy, and resource poor. I'd second Сергей's suggestion: > Maybe we can make up lists of people who can be contacted in case Google > Translate is not enough to understand a message, or if one wants to post > something but doesn't know English. For example, I might be a contact for > Russian language. While I don't contribute in a really meaningful way, at > least I monitor all activity on this list, and [hopefully] know English > enough to understand others and be understood. Having some sort of central resource would make the most sense. Is there a way to contact the translation team leaders and inquire if they could provide aid for downstream teams trying to prepare applications, patches, artwork, and proposals for upstream? Are there entities outside of Ubuntu who might be able to help with this challenge? Cheers, Rob Oakes-- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
[ubuntu-art] That's a wrap everyone!
> > All the times I've tried to get people who don't really know much > about designing get involved with any work, whether it's print, web > or art, I've been let down because even though you'd expect those > people to be able to give a fully unbiased review from an outsider's > point of view, they really just will either approve or disprove of > whatever you've made based on ridiculous criteria. > The art work is not for our pleasure its for the users of Ubuntu so NOT asking them what they want us to do for Edgy is crazy. I think coming up with some colour proposals that the art team like and (to some degree) agree on, then present these to the users on the forums with a poll to see what is popular. We could also poll people on their favourite art in Dapper to get a feel of what worked. -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
