License information for icons

[jbstatgen]

Hi drawio Team,

drawio is my go-to solutions for creating conceptual models, I use it quite regularly. Thank you very much for an excellent software tool! I am using drawio-desktop (currently 28.2.8) on MacOS (26.0.1) and the Google Drive extension for collaborative work.

Currently, I'm submitting a manuscript to BISS (https://biss.pensoft.net/) and the publisher requires me to provide license information for the manuscript's figure (created with Inkscape) that includes as svg's imported and partly modified (color) icons from drawio's "Shapes" sets, specifically from the sets "Basic", "Flowchart", "Mockups", "Network 2025" and "VMWare".

The information that I found via searches and also associated with your GitHub repositories seems confusing, and partly contradictory. I'm not sure how to proceed.

• License of included graphics. #557

This issue from 2019 states that "We perform due diligence on the license to all shape sets that we use and derive from to check that adding them to a diagram is: * Legally allowed for all cases * Does not require attribution"

All seems to be fine, there doesn't seem to be any constraints associated with reuse. Though does this mean all icons are in the public domain, eg. do they have or can be considered to have a Public Domain Mark or a CC0 waiver?

• https://github.com/jgraph/drawio

The current ReadMe states "The JGraph provided icons and diagram templates are licensed under the CC BY 4.0. Additional terms may also apply where the icons are originally defined by a third-party copyright holder. We have checked in all cases that the original license allows use in this project."

This statement has me concerned, since so far I have reused drawio's (native) icons as if they are in the public domain, though that might actually not be the case.

Shape sets associated with brands

Several shape sets in your shape library seem to be associated with brands. Can these be reused

• without license considerations ("allows use in this project" - drawio is about using freely shared software and reusing its embedded shape resources to create new graphics), e.g. adding this statement to figures "Icons available from drawio for open reuse.",
• do additional terms apply, - which are these? or
• would the CC-BY-4.0 license (stating drawio/jgraph as author/source) cover all license considerations?

"Native" drawio shapes

Furthermore, now I'm not certain anymore if even drawio's apparently native shapes are reusable without license. Should I and colleagues be required to add a CC-BY-4.0 license to graphs that we created using icons from the "native" standard sets, eg. "General", "Misc", "Advanced", "Entity Relation", "Trees", etc.? This would make the use of drawio cumbersome. For example, several to many TDWG.org-associated GitHub repositories would be required to rework their materials, e.g. wiki, training, guide, (non-)normative documents, etc. to adhere to your licensing requirements.

Can you please clarify the legal situation of your shapes and icons?

I would very much appreciate it if you could let me know in a response to this issue, which license information to add to the manuscript's graphic that is using icons of the shape sets "Basic", "Flowchart", "Mockups", "Network 2025" and "VMWare", so that I can submit the manuscript without replacing the icons/shapes.

As a feature request, I would like to ask for license information to be associated to each shape/icon and/or shape set. If all shapes have the same terms, alternatively please provide additional clarity to your license statement in drawio's ReadMe. It would be very helpful if you could differentiate between licenses associated with the software, potentially the GitHub repo, and the shapes/icons that are made available in the program.

Thank you very much for considering my short-term inquiry and future-oriented feature request.

[davidjgraph]

The attribution applies if you host the repo, i.e. deliver the icons within any software app that you host. The attribution license does not apply for displaying diagrams that contain them via software that we host, or via image export format.

[nizzke]

Hi there, thanks for opening up that discussion.

The readme states: "The JGraph provided icons and diagram templates are licensed under the CC BY 4.0." https://github.com/jgraph/drawio?tab=readme-ov-file#license

The statement above was, that no attribution is required, while CC BY would require a reference.

So it is at least a bit confusing. Plus at the shapes / shape libraries no license information is visible. So indeed additional information is required.

In the end I understand that all integrated shapes should be freely usable (including modifications) in diagrams when at least CC BY 4.0 is used, including the provision of the resulting SOURCE FILE to other users.

[jbstatgen]

Hi David and drawio Team,

Apologies for the apparently late reply, my direct response to your answer got lost in the transition from issue to discussion, which I only discovered later. I will recuperate it here.

Shape repository as a whole

If I understand you correctly, it is only the whole set of icons that has the CC-BY-4.0 license. Thus, should one download it in total or to a significant extent from the drawio repository, then one would need to attribute you in a read me and/or a CFF file (Citation File Format). This seems similar to the EU directive on the legal protection of databases, according to which a database can be (might be) protected under certain conditions, while its data/contents retain their original legal status that is not impacted by any database protection.

Reuse of individual icons

Therefore, the use of individual icons or limited sets of icons from your repository/shape library in the creation of graphics or through export by the users of drawio is freely and openly permitted from your side as provider or intermediary.

For drawio's native icons this means that they are freely and openly reusable within user-generated graphics or through export without any obligations (eg. duty to add an attribution note) or constraints (prohibition of use e.g. in commercial/freelance contexts) being associated with them.

For users of drawio, it would be really helpful to know this and to have legal certainty.

In my use case at hand the question is, which of the shape sets provided in the drawio library contain icons that are native to drawio, or in the public domain? I would expect this might be "Basic" and "Flowchart", though for "Mockups" and "Network 2025" I'm unsure. "VMWare" icons seem to have their origin in a branded software context.

Reuse of icons with brand origin

The legal situation is different for icons in your shape repository that originated from branded contexts, e.g. Google, AWS, Microsoft. I tried to find license information for these icons and icon sets searching the web presences of these software brands. For some of the (presumably) brand-based icon sets that I investigated I could

• not identify the origin of the icons (eg. Network 2025),
• not find license information (eg. VMWare), or
• legal information was vague (aka "can be reused" - but, its clearly tightly associated with a brand and the delimitation from a trademarked logo is unclear), or
• the license/trademark/terms of use seemed to restrict reuse to specific use cases.

Examples of terms of use that I found:

Microsoft

See "Icon Terms" for Azure icons:

"Microsoft permits the use of these icons in architectural diagrams, training materials, or documentation. You can copy, distribute, and display the icons only for the permitted use unless granted explicit permission by Microsoft. Microsoft reserves all other rights."

AWS

Response by the Ask AWS chatbot (https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/icons/):

Q: Hi, please point me to the license information stating the terms of reuse for AWS icons. Thank you.

"Hello! AWS provides trademark guidelines for using AWS logos and marks. If you're looking to use AWS icons, you should review the AWS Trademark Guidelines at [aws.amazon.com/trademark-guidelines ](https://aws.amazon.com/trademark-guidelines/)
.
For AWS customers in good standing, AWS grants a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use certain AWS marks under specific conditions. However, there are important limitations:

    You must not alter the logo images in any way
    AWS marks must appear by themselves with reasonable spacing
    You cannot imitate AWS trade dress or "look and feel"
    All rights to AWS marks remain the exclusive property of AWS

For specific questions about using AWS icons, I recommend contacting AWS directly as licensing terms may vary depending on your intended use."

Use case

At this point, everyone who isn't a hardened lawyer is running for the hills.

The conclusion that colleagues and I recently drew from this overall legal situation (in the context of biodiversity data) is that unless resources that are aimed at reuse are set into the public domain and/or associated with clear legal terms of use/license information, these resources are basically not reusable since legal uncertainty is too high, or license stacking provides a significant obstacle to reuse.

For the longest time, our biodiversity data, infrastructure and standards community was convinced that nothing is going to happen and being concerned about legal small print is unnecessary - until TDWG as not-for-profit organization based on the voluntary work of community members got sued because someone didn't check sufficiently deeply if they were allowed to reuse a thumbnail-sized image, a comprehensive summary can be found in TDWG's list of News items.

Learning from this experience, and also because data governance is becoming increasingly important due to the global scope - socio-politically, socio-culturally as well as geographically - of biodiversity data, TDWG as organization and our community in general have started to pay attention and discuss the legal and ethical rules and considerations associated with the reuse of open data, traditional knowledge, and copyrighted works.

In addition, regarding the concrete reuse of several icons in the graphic under consideration, as project team, we are using the icons from drawio in a graphic abstract that we use as part of our pitch to funders. We wouldn't want to raise questions regarding the legal integrity of our behavior.

Requested feature

Based on all of this, I would like to request that you support users in achieving legal certainty by enabling them to assess if their reuse adheres to licenses and terms of use. Please consider adding governance information to the icons, and/or pointing users to terms of use and/or licenses. At a minimum, please add a disclaimer that informs user that some of the icons are copyrighted or trademarked.

Both options, could be done within the dawio software user interface, the shape library, or alternatively via drawio's GitHub repository with a pointer from the software's user interface. For example, a table in the repository could provide summary information describing the legal terms of reuse, providing, e.g. 1) an URL to the original source of the icons/icon sets and 2) a link to the license or terms of use, as well as potentially 3) the name of the owner or source if known, and 4) the type of license (eg. CC-BY-4.0, Terms of Use, etc.).

Thank you for your consideration.

[davidjgraph]

Hi,

please add a disclaimer that informs user that some of the icons are copyrighted or trademarked.

All creative materials are copyrighted by default. Trademarking is also an implicit thing and different to a registered trademark. None of the icons are registered trademarked, that doesn't make sense for an icon.

[davidjgraph]

In terms of Azures icon license, that text was the result of me telling MS that the icons wouldn't be included in draw.io until they deleted most of the original license text, https://web.archive.org/web/20221206061458/https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/architecture-center/issues/2251.

In terms of AWS, that license is dire and I hope it's an AI error:

For AWS customers in good standing, AWS grants a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use certain AWS marks under specific conditions.

How do you define good standing?

[jbstatgen]

My background on trademarks is limited, and I wouldn't know the details. Though independent of which governance category is applicable, I would want to make sure that I understand the legal terms associated with using an icon.

For some applications, ie. graphics, it is important to only use works that are in the public domain or for which copyright has been waived. I'm currently looking for public domain replacements to the icons that I used from drawio. In this search, I came across the following disclaimer displayed in the ReadMe of the devicon GitHub repository:

All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Usage of these logos should be done according to the company/brand/service's brand policy. 

Maybe an option to consider. A disclaimer similar to this would provide a flag to users that they need to look further into the legal context of their icon reuse.

[jbstatgen]

How do you define good standing?

That is exactly part of the conundrum ...

Three seasoned lawyers read the same legal act and come back with five interpretations.

As user, I can't deal with this during daily work, my todo-list is already too long.

[davidjgraph]

I understand the problem, but I'm not sure why the expection is that draw.io would put it's icons in the public domain? Commercially, we can't do that. You might just use a commercial diagramming tool and ask them to put their icons in the public domain?

[jbstatgen]

My understanding is that your commercial product is your functionality, ie. your application, which you are offering, e.g., in the form of a Software-as-a-Service product.

To ensure we are talking about the same icons. I'm not considering your drawio logo (eg. https://github.com/jgraph/drawio/blob/dev/src/main/webapp/images/drawio.svg). My focus is on icons in your shape library, eg. the "Data store" shape from the "Advanced" shape set:

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. You are not selling your shapes individually, or do you on some icon/image platform?

From my perspective, the argument is the other way around: drawio as application will gain by offering users public domain shapes. The "selling point" here is legal certainty. In addition, there are several additional advantages that public domain icons and icon sets can provide to your for-pay product.

Even if you can't set your own shapes into the public domain, why not add some public domain shape sets to your shape library and flag them clearly as public. domain/CC0 resources?

[jbstatgen]

No matter how you decide, for a potentially growing set of users it will be key that you provide legal clarity and certainty.

[jbstatgen]

Two approaches that that might be of interest:

• "Files made using Inkscape" at https://inkscape.org/about/license/ providing clarity to users.
• uxwing license at https://uxwing.com/license/ as alternative to public domain.