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Licensing Works

Documentation > Contributor Guides

MyPaint is a copyleft, open source project. Products made by the MyPaint project may be considered a public good of sorts, and their existence from a legal perspective must be representative of this. The MyPaint project actions this by distributing products under open licenses. As a contributor to the project, you must agree to dedicate your work under specific open licenses in order for us to be able to include it in our products.

Users’ Rights

  • Users must have the right to freely license original works created using an unmodified MyPaint painting application distributed by the MyPaint project.

Types of works

Website (*.md)

.md files are used to populate the body of pages in the MyPaint website (https://mypaint.org)

To be included in the MyPaint website, .md files must be dedicated under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Backgrounds and palettes

It is highly probable that background images and palette files will become embedded in original works created using MyPaint.

To be included in the MyPaint project, backgrounds and palettes must must be public domain. This may be accomplished using the the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.

To apply this dedication on your work, follow this guide on declaring a license.

The declaration may appear in a README file, embedded in the image metadata or comments fields. GIMP palette files have a description field which can be used for the same purpose.

Brush packs

Raw brush settings (*.myb)

Raw brush settings in a brush pack are copied around very enthusiastically by the MyPaint program. It is highly probable that raw brush settings will become embedded in original works created using MyPaint.

To be included in the MyPaint project, brush settings must be public domain. This may be accomplished using the the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.

Other files

Other files (files that do not follow the pattern “*.myb”) are not raw brush settings. Such files include preview packages and supplemental cover-type artwork.

Other files in a brush pack are self-contained, and should not become embedded in original works created using MyPaint.

To be included in the MyPaint project, other files must be distributed openly using one of the following dedications:

Supplemental artwork or promotional material

Supplemental artwork and promotional material is content distributed with the intent of being used miscellaneously by the MyPaint project, or by third-parties when referencing MyPaint and the MyPaint project.

To be included in the MyPaint project, supplemental artwork and promotional material must be distributed openly using one of the following dedications:

To apply one of these dedication on your work, follow this guide on declaring a license.

The declaration may appear in human-readable form on a website (such as GitHub or the MyPaint community forums) alongside the work, or embedded into the work’s metadata.

We suggest marking images intended for use as promotional screenshots with the text “© <<YEAR>> <<YOUR NAME>>, CC BY-SA 4.0”, in a readable but unobtrusive fashion.

MyPaint source code

Application source code, icons, and artwork for display within the program.

To be included in the MyPaint website, .md files must be dedicated under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version license. Please note that the “or any later version” clause is mandatory.

When working with source code:

  • Retain the existing license boilerplates in source code files.
  • Begin new files with a boilerplate header in the format recommended by the license itself.

This includes program icons and artwork for display within the program.

Using licenses

Creative Commons

https://creativecommons.org/choose/

Brush packs

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for details.

As an exception to this and to the extent possible under law, <<YOUR NAME>> has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to the raw brush settings (those files ending with “.myb”). See http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ for details.