A response about the return of Openclipart and what that means for FreeSVGClipart. The short answer is: it changes nothing.
The slightly longer answer is I will not use Openclipart again. I do not trust them. I will not be making any attempts at mirror or adding the new clipart items they post. The community is welcome to upload those new items here if they wish.
Remember all new items and the data associated with those items are released regularly on our Google Drive. The community is welcome to it.
Some further information for the clipart community to consider:
According to Wikipedia, Openclipart went down on April 19, 2019. Openclipart was down for 6 months and 9 days when FreeSVGClipart opened. The majority of information that anyone seemed to get from Openclipart were only cryptic messages via Twitter like asking for more followers and of course the now well known begging for donations while they were closed page. Then on December 25th Openclipart seemed to reappear. 8 months and 6 days after it had disappeared from the Internet, Openclipart posted this on their website. This notice from Openclipart has since disappeared from their site but I am posting it here so it can be discussed, why it is not on the Openclipart site I do not know.
Our Founder Bassel would love this problem.
Little did he know that the work he started would continue long after he was gone. Little did he know that millions of people would rely upon his technology daily. Little did he know that his family, friends and you would never forget him.Some stories of Bassel are known. Most are not.
Here’s one: The origin of Bassel began with Openclipart.
However, you are here for clipart. And, you noticed that Openclipart has been protected for months. Do you know why?
Today, December 25, 2019 is a new beginning.
Effective immediately, Openclipart is gifted to the community.
That still leaves four important questions: (1) Where are we? (2) Where do we want to go? (3) How do we get there? (4) How will you contribute?
As a community project, we must discuss these questions together through clipart. Please notice that Openclipart is currently simplified. Past members of Openclipart, your accounts work and you may share clipart. Librarians, once you login you will see how we may work together.
All of your clipart and Bassel’s code are safe. Openclipart was founded in 2004, 15 years ago. Technology has changed massively. Openclipart will emerge through your contributions.
Openclipart is making a grand call for participation of artists and developers towards becoming the new Openclipart Librarians.
Not sure how you may help? Donate to support the development of Openclipart. All monies generated from the operation of this website and donations made will be used to improve Openclipart. Also, community governance of the project is to be explored collectively, together.
Bassel would have loved this problem. This is our time. Let’s do this!
Jon Phillips, 2019-12-25
Discuss…
Luis Minem says:
The openclipart site does look more like it is being squatted upon than actually operated. Thank you for your work. As a volunteer, I typeset a very small local free newspaper in a very remote rural area. I have no budget for any art (or anything else not volunteered), but some of the “antique” clip art from the old openclipart site has been a great help in “lightening” the pages of the paper.
UX Design says:
hope you don’t take offence, Just a couple of UI improvements really.
I am not that keen on the new theme, I am sure it has it’s benefits if logged in, like the ability to change colour for each user but I think it needs a bit more eye candy, I don’t know if this would entail a whole new theme or graphics such as banners and custom buttons for navigation. To me the current theme seems too plain. Also it’s looking a bit busy on the right and at the bottom.
I would suggest using a theme where menu and footer are a different colour, if your really wanting to stand out from the competition then parallax, but that might get a bit annoying and be demanding on the server side so stick with basic neutral colours or better still use a site like adobe color to come up with a colour theme, Also you need to work on your identity, either use the logo on twitter or I would suggest you ask current users to come up with a design, giving them full credit of course.
remove the more info link as you see this info when you click on donate. Remove user menu on right, making it only accessible to users login in, place login in top menu. remove download entire collection, instead create a page from menu linking to my commitment to opensource or put it in your blog, and make all of these offsite links to gdrive for images and CVS within there. Remove user image contribs on right, and instead create and advanced search function, or create link below search button saying or search by user, opening up a page with a lost of all users. Leave social links, stats, tags as they are.
in footer, group similar items under one description, like all GDPR related to just one hyper link saying GDPR, Same goes for API, you probably don’t need the pages widget as it’s just repeating the above.
Hope this helps
FreeSVGClipart says:
Feel free to code it up and send me a zip of the theme. Or if you want to just create an image mockup of what you are thinking feel free to send that and I will get to moving things around when I have time. Would always welcome the participation.