The Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) aims to create
an archive of user contributed clip art that may be freely used. The
project's reason for providing this clip art is to make open source
applications more useful to users; for some users, the availability of
good clip art that can be quickly dropped into a document to dress it
up can be as important as any other feature in the application.
The project was started in early 2004 as a spinoff from Inkscape by
Bryce Harrington and Jon Phillips as a way to help consolidate SVG
images contributed by Inkscape users with similar collections from
other projects. It was directly inspired by the Sodipodi Flags Clipart
project from 2003.
"We want to build a rich collection of reusable clipart that open
source programs can leverage for their users. Currently, if one wishes
to create a quick document using clip art, the easiest solution is to
use a proprietary program since they tend to have clip art included
along with them, or massive creative archives because of the longer
history of support for the closed source standard design applications.
We want to turn that around so that it ceases to be an argument for not
using Open Source. " -OpenClipArt.org FAQ
The library currently incorporates over 5000 images from over 500
artists, and offers the entire library as a free download.
According to developer, Jon Phillips, "The
Open Clip Art Library provides a service for all levels of graphics
users with low social and technical barriers to encourage maximum
submissions in order to gather a diverse collection of vector
graphics."
The images are in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, with
thumbnails in Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format. All graphics
submitted to the project are placed into the Public Domain according to
the Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration.
"A creative work is said to be in the public domain if it may be used
without legal restriction. There may be no laws which establish
proprietary rights in relation to the work or the work or its subject
matter may be specifically excluded from existing laws." -Wikipedia
"We select the Public Domain for the clipart in order to provide
maximum flexibility and ease of use to the user. You can put the
clipart into your own drawings without any affect on the copyright or
license of your work. There are no requirements to include attribution
of the clipartist. You can edit and modify the clipart as you wish and
redistribute it under your own terms." -OpenClipArt.org FAQ
Due to the success of the "OCAL 5K Pledge," their next goal is for 10K
images (10,000 clip art images) by the end of 2005. The development
community encourages all types of artists to contribute images to the
library this month in support of the theme, Pets -- one step towards
the end of year OCAL 10K Pledge.
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ClipartRequests
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ClipartTopics
Excepts were taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Clip_Art_Library
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?PrAnnouncement
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?FAQ
http://www.openclipart.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OOoConAbstract2004