Hi friends. :)
Can we use an icon under "GPL" or "LGPL" licence for commercial work?
I don't want to sell icon. I just want to use icon for my web design work. but I do this web design work for my client, so I take money for the web design
Thanks a lot...
The GPL and LGPL licenses were not designed for media, such as icons. This leaves a lot open to interpretation. Are you referring to icons found within a work licensed under the GPL or LGPL? If so, the licensing terms for the icons may be different than the program distributed with them.
I agree with Mike about the (L)GPL being of questionable use for icons or content. The license is meant to cover software and it does exactly that. Anything else is probably a nasty gray area. I would ask the owner if they could release the content under a Creative Commons license of some sort. Most people are reasonable enough to do this.
From the GNU GPL FAQ:
Can I use the GPL for something other than software?
You can apply the GPL to any kind of work, as long as it is clear what constitutes the “source code” for the work. The GPL defines this as the preferred form of the work for making changes in it.
It is probably debateable, but I'd say whatever format you use to edit the image before saving would probably constitute "source code".
However, if you use pure GPL, that would render any program that links in your image in its executable GPL. If you don't want that, I'd suggest modifying this standard font exception to say "image" instead of "font":
As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font, and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version.