Found a few more but there were some restrictions like only 50 downloads a day, attributing the host site and claiming you are not free to alter their images. When that's the whole point of the public domain, and certainly they dug their material from other cc0 sites, that's a huge no.
What do you think?
Do you use another site that you'd recommend?
Edit: adding in new links to the list once a new one appears.
Hi Lazur, Thank you for the good overview. I didn't know freesvg.org, but am glad to see it. It is sad that openclipart is not (yet) online. We keep hoping.
Glad you like it! Hope to make that list longer however that's pretty much I could find at the moment.
There are similar public domain image sources focusing on raster images -png-s- only, even of which are mirroring generated raster content from the vector sites.
Also found one which had a share-alike licensing policy and another one with a messy url.
Not sure who are providing these sites. They are sustained by ads -of which hopefully one won't see after registering as a member.
It is a common practice amongst the public domain image hosts to include links to stock images. It may not be the most welcomed one from a foss view but that's how the current market is working.
I'm also an advocate of public domain resources so I'm always looking for new sites to share. As for SVG, there isn't much. People is either scared about waiving their rights or they don't get what "public domain" actually is; it's common to see something sponsored as public, only to find out they request a link-back or put some other constrains. Also, some are tracing from stock pictures and releasing the derivate with a different license. Is this legit to do?
Also, some are tracing from stock pictures and releasing the derivate with a different license. Is this legit to do?
No, not really. It was a huge problem at openclipart ensuring that there is no copyright material uploaded.
The solution was community filtering by a set of "librarians".
Other practices I saw on the sites above were either they pick the material -which is in the public domain and up to their quality level- or that they hold no responsibility for the uploaded content over damages, "use at own risk".
People is either scared about waiving their rights
In my humble opinion it's rather people are jealous that their content will be monetized by others and envy the profit. Thus hardly anyone puts in the effort for producing decent new material -which can help with no bills for them.
On the other hand, without alterations public domain cannot be sold as original work, so professionals rather use an image they pay for -because they can get explicit access to an appropriate license fitting their contract requirements.
Personally most of my uploads were about "raw material". Filter packs, quick examples, templates, remixes, testing, tutorials etc.
Not worried much if these are used for commercial work, although it's quite funny seeing how out of context it can get.
Like this one, where a trophy drawn from the openclipart scissors logo (commemorating my 2000th upload) appears on a mug.
In my humble opinion it's rather people are jealous that their content will be monetized by others and envy the profit
I wondered about it since I learned what public domain means ( years ago ) and today I can say that not only I don't care how people use the stuff I release but I also can only praise them if they're able to make business with it. Afterall I make raw design and that means things aren't ready to be used as is. I recently started a project where i release stuff with a public domain license, but I'm mostly experimenting: how fast I am making stuff, or what people really are asking for.
Do you think the public domain is a turn off for people? Like, do they think it's only about old things found in books of centuries ago or do they found it untrustable and unreliable?
On a side note..I came to know some people think royalty-free is the same as public domain. And it isn't.
Do you think the public domain is a turn off for people?
Yes. Turn off for most professionals.
But it doesn't necessarily needs to be centuries old. It is different around the world, but mostly 80 years after the release date/death of the author material is released automatically into the public domain.
Some cases the author explicitely release material to the public domain. Like the US governmemt -thus every photo NASA releases is free for the public use.
Then, there is the Night of the liing dead which ended up in the public domain by accident.
It mentions freesvgclipart.com as a secondary mirror of the content. Interesting how it was not in the google search on the first pages. Nevertheless it seems to work reliable too.
I used an SVG font for a custom website; and for what I know, are mostly used to display icons rather than letters. As for the icons I can't mention one site, however I'm sure there are sets of svg icons on sites like Github. Could we also link to them (if any)? Just asking if this is only for cliparts or anything made in svg
The sole idea was to make a list of svg hosts where we could share inkscape works in large quantity and as a backup.
Guess now when redesigning the previous openclipart functionality we can take precautions and push for svg support regarding data management on the net
Like, one of the main problem with the database dump of openclipart is the tags were added to the site manually with respective descriptions.
Instead, the metadata should be filled with the information to the point one can track the image's history too.
Which will also need teaching inkscape users of the importance of this additional data.
More than that, one svg is mirrored around several sites so it may seem a reasonable idea adding an "original identification" or maybe even some global identification data so matching svg copies could be tracked on the net.
Encountered some sites too that held both vector and raster images. I'd personally prefer a database which focuses on one format only.
Like, there are sites that offer public domain music. Publicdomainfiles.com already offers tv shows too. It may be a good source for someone browsing randomly to find interesting new (old) material but for those that are focused on one format may not be effective.
Svg is more of a browser format -even if modifying, the original metadata should be kept somewhere. While raster images come and go. Designers pop it in photoshop -or krita, gimp...- and merge them with other images and "object identification" is gone. Thus it'd make less sense to edit a raster image when it's a mockup of dozens of other raster images -like one uses a paper texture as a background, or some bokeh overlay, custom brushes, splatters etc. to track all data in a metadata field of the raster image. It's impossible to track all the sources and that's the beauty how the result is a merged single new image.
With a musical reference with all strictness on copyright on every single material we couldn't have Paul's boutique.
Maybe will start another topic on free raster images mainly although feeling that less of inkscape drawing related.
Edit:
after second thought kisscc0 also shares raster images too. Adding your findings to the list.
The sole idea was to make a list of svg hosts where we could share inkscape works in large quantity and as a backup.
Oh.. now I get it. I thought this was more on the line "let's share resources with the requisites: svg and cc0" hence why I asked if we could link to stand-alone resources rather than whole sites dedicated only to that. Since you're asking for a backup, the only sites I can think of are archive.org or wikimedia commons. And I prefer the first
The webmaster did alone an incredible job to bring back online most of OCAL svg, with metadatata, including author attribution (using original OCAL nicknames). Even if I understand and fully accept the concept of public domain, I personally appreciate there's still a place on Internet to find who did them.
But a site depending on a single person... That's pretty weak as warranty. So I'm a bit pessimist on its capacity to cross the time.
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.
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!
Not sure you read the article about bassel being involved in crypto
rejon
etc
rejon
Its simple but unbelievable...
rejon
Our work on Qi Hardware
rejon
became the first bitcoin miner
rejon
You can follow that out many generations and years
rejon
From Qi Hardware to Canaan to the future hardware at Linzhi (ethereum)
rejon
and essentially I protected a new bassel
rejon
and my public projects and identity were attacked
rejon
I have a plan
rejon
I'm happy with the frontend path, thanks to jcubic.
rejon
The backend with mysql and aiki has many challenges.
rejon
Only way I see out of this is daily attacking
rejon
To get public interface usable.
If I got it right the whole previous infrastructure had the barn door open (as experienced several times...) and currently he is in progress of rebuilding from scratch.
That may be a reason why we cannot see any of the uploads -and probably why the upload option not working either?
Anyway, told him to contact Bryce and he just did after. As previously it was discussed Bryce would contact Rejon, wasn't sure if he got the message.
I personally sent Rejon half a dozen messages regarding the inkscape board/vectors team trying to contact for collaboration and neither got a reply.
Also he told on the chat that he protected someone not to became the next victim and that he became a new father this year.
Guessing he is beyond busy with life although he never grabbed the helping hands offered nor didn't he let us speculate which is the worse.
I'm thinking inkscape will need to focus on the issue of "data security" and be the leader in web focused svg sharing.
That is, better support and more organised metadata section,
stamp of original "global id", date of creation etc.
So that we could share work parallel through the listed sites in the first post and track those svg-s.
Which also needs those sites to inherit tags, descriptions etc. automatically embedded into the metadata that can be used throughout the database.
As this point the biggest issue is the openclipart database being available without any tags and descriptions.
If it would get the positive support from those hosts maybe the process could be further preserved by involving it in the future svg specs.
Reading the message on the new homepage, it comes across a bit just wanting money, as before. I don't see how I can search for clipart. I see uploads, login, donate, and email, but no search. I'm not sure if I ever reg'd there previously, and not sure if I want to now.
Would have to actually participate in the community discussions and community governance part, to find out if it's a sincere but badly worded effort to rebuild, or another xmas scam.
That bit of chat that you shared sounds strange. When he says "daily attacking" is he still saying there's a ddos attack? That's really hard for me to grasp (although of course I'm no expert).
I'm glad he contacted Bryce, but in my personal experience, Bryce doesn't have much time for Inkscape right now. Doubt if he could help with OCA either.
I found the wikipedia article quite interesting. But it refers to OCA as "was", all the way through. And it ends without offering any hopes for the future.
Lazur, if you think it would be helpful for others from Inkscape user community to participate, I would be glad to attend any chat meetings, as far as the community discussions or governance, along with you. I think this is a worthwhile project for Vectors team, and Inkscape Project in general. I don't have any real skills to contribute, other than paying attention, being a witness, and offering common sense thoughts, ideas, and opinions. But I'd be glad to offer that much, if it would be helpful.
Or, if better to just start whole new project from Vectors team, I can offer the same. Minimal experience working with websites and webhost, but willing to learn.
Honestly I'm not so positive about this comeback either with the vague message given.
Raised my concerns and Rejon agreed on giving a better hint for the members but so far haven't seen much sign of that.
Only "upgrade" was that now one can actualy upload clipart so the functionality seems fixed.
Can imagine Rejon got personal attacks from an unrelated project of his but then again openclipart was put together without any concerns in the beginning.
Like you could query generating raster images out of any svg-s in the database at any given size simultaneously and svg-s were accessible with the right url in their entirety.
Both of which are really a big security hazard. One can add html content in the svg and the onsite rendering hauls the server down.
Me not being an expert on it by any means but I'd probably look for a solution where the svg database is stored in a cloud and the raster content to be rendered by gateway "mirrors" so that even if the site is being attacked by ddos/mass querying the content, the core would be intact. Maybe some thumbnails getting not available at a few times, but you can still download the svg from one server or the other.
Then the other thing would be the previously mentioned proper svg metadata filling inside inkscape and their automatic scraping on site.
And probably never actually rendering an svg without embedding it first -so parts of the functionality could be blocked at any point.
As someone who has been following the absence of OCAL since it first went down I have to say this:
Like many OCAL community members when the site went down I offered assistance, which was ignored. After being down for 44 days with no clear info on what was happening from rejon apart from cryptic messages and monetary donation pleas, I shared my own clipart elsewhere so it could continue to be publicly available. The Openclipart Twitter handle attacked and blocked me, for sharing my own CC0 clipart for free.
This is not the behaviour of an open source, or even a community oriented project. It is good moves are finally being made to restore the collection to the public, but I am concerned about the pattern of erratic and toxic behaviour from OCAL which we now know is “owned” by just one person to do as he pleases.
I am uncomfortable with the idea Inkscape might continue to have direct in-application access to the OCAL database, as it would continue to legitimise a project that no longer is owned by the community and doesn’t have clear open source values.
The community has since created some really fantastic options like the previously mentioned freesvg.org and freesvgclipart.com. I’d love to see these projects grow and be championed by Inkscape as they align more with Inkscape's values.
I can attest to everything stated by cyanaidecupcake, as I watched in shock and amusement as it unfolded.
When OCAL went down we were effectively left without a source of clipart and provide with no explanation other than the site had been taken down due to DDS, for a number of months the home page offered no real explanation or updates on it's return and instead seemed to serve one purpose, to elicit further donations, misleading the general public into thinking access would be given to anyone that donated. Lot's of people on twitter were saying, I've donated how do I now get access.
After a period of about 6 months OCAL appeared to be dead and the community had enough, people got their heads together and started sharing the images they had gathered, soon afterwards 3 websites emerged to serve the OCAL community 1 died which left freesvg.org and freesvgclipart.com who promised in future to provide a downloadable backup, so the collection would always be safe even if their sites went down.
Freesvg were making steps to provide the community with an inkscape plugin, but since OCAL has now returned this will probably get abandoned, as there is no point wasting precious developer time, on something that wont get used if OCAL is to control the SVG monopoly.
I am glad to see inkscape is turning 1, and to celebrate this occasion you appear to want to bring back OCAL integration, but you need to be aware of the verifiable back story as the truth can often be manipulated.
I am also happy to see OCAL has returned, but I do think they have some explaining to do and a apology woudn't go a mis either, especially to small business that depended on their content like small games developers and many other micro economies. They also need to recognise, they caused the emergance of alternative popup sites, which has changed the way in which the content in now distributed, I think people now want to see more of a collaborative effort between sites hosting SVG content, and more importantly for there to always be a backup available to the general public.
It should be noted that I am a moderator on freesvg.org but I am unbiaised in this regard, these comments are my own and do not reflect freesvg oppinion.
I would suggest these new sites not fold up yet, until we see some sincere effort to mend fences and restore the previous goodwill. I'm not convinced the new oca is sincere.
It looks like it's sort of possible to search nearly 5000 pages of clipart. But as far as I can tell, you can only search one page at a time. There does not appear to be a keyword search. I mean, that seems rather insulting to me. Woo-hoo, gifted to the community, but only sort of??? Did I miss the search field? Am I just too impatient? A few days ago, there was no search at all. The whole public story is just so strange.
By the way, this is a little different, but I just noticed Inkscape has a new sponsor vectorstock.com
Thank you CyanideCupcake and robsmithncl for joining in!
Glad to hear those points.
Didn't know how deep well we'll dive this topic into but glad there is discussion.
Openclipart is being under rebuilding at the moment (from scratch?), thus the previous features are lacking.
A day ago we were talking about the issue in the vectors team and besides the technical issue of how to maintain "Schrödinger's" cliparts, there is admittedly a lacking overall quality of the artwork presented.
It may be so and we can also discuss in a topic which strategy to take on if we ever want to build a community based cc0 sharing site and/or want to be part of the development of those.
In which way cliparts should be filtered from the spam, which way to maintain the quality and run the site, providing the hosting fee, expansion etc.
The other issue is, wether inkscape is supporting the online community of cc0 drawings shared with built in features.
Currently openclipart is still within and broken. Admittedly I never used that feature before. But as someone who mainly uploaded files into the library I'm more concerned on the upload part.
How to avoid online images go under without a trace.
With svg-s all the tags, descriptions and whatnot could be held in the metadata of the files, and that data should be accessible for browsers. However that wasn't the case and all and at openclipart you had to manually fill in tag and description fields, wwhich didn't transfer right from one mirroring site to another.
Seems everything shared can be whiped out and gone with the wind while they are still accessible by pure luck and not direct traces.
In that manner the more places the same drawing is shared at the better. Which may call for a batch upload protocol preferably that all these sites could accept as well.
On the browsing part, if multiple libraries are available, one may not like to come across the same image multiple times.
Like, one is looking for images of apples and trying to take as much of them as possible. It is a big waste of time if one needs to weed out multiple instances of the same image just to come across other variants of the fruit.
Therefore a global unique id and original sharing info is better embedded to the uploaded svg-s, so that we can track where it was uploaded first and when.
These ideas I'm chewing on before listing them on gitlab.
I am lead to beleive all of the goodies, you know the thing you've come to expect from your typical image sharing platform are behind the registration wall. You can't register, at present only registered users have the ability to search and librarians have the ability to upload. This we are told is essential for testing.
What I don't understand coming from having a little experience in website construction myself, is why they are having to completely rebuild the site, if as they claim all of the code and the collection were safe, this doesn't make sense as I can recover my own sites restoring entire functionality within 30 mins of downtime. Surely it would have made better sense to reinstate the old website, then develope a newer site on a subdomain, or within a test environment, and this is speculative but if they are having to rebuild as they have identified security flaws, then shouldn't they have focused all their attention on fixing those, instead of rebuilding from scratch.
I have no reason to doubt they will be back, personally I think they had abandoned the site when one of their founders in Syria was executed, and the only reason it's coming back now is because 1) there are alternatives out their that are prooving they can provide just as good of a user experience, as OCAL has in less time and at less expense, it's the old spacex vs ULA dilema which has to be embarassing for them, and 2) Inkscape have personally reached out and requested they resurface and probably 3) they may have received an injection in cash as fabricatorz their parent organisation, now appears to be operating as a foundation. Whatever the future holds, I hope both the other projects manage to shadow OCAL to keep them in check.
An upload to cloud feature operated by inkscape would be a good idea, where any images saved by inkscape users are held within a central repository which all registered clipart sites could gain access to, allowing them to make the images available to their users, this could also be done automatically by pushing the images to those participating websites through the use of API, but could also be fraught with problems.
Thanks for your time, and the oportuntity to get my point across.
Hello all. My name is Lee I am the guy behind https://freesvgclipart.com/ and there is just so much to say it is hard to know where to start.
First I guess thanks for the kind words for those that have visited the site. I realize that my site suffers from some of the same problems that OCAL suffers from, mainly it is only me running the site. Yes there are some contributors but at the end of the day the only person that has access to the data and files is only me. By releasing the files and the data on Google Drive I hope that if I were to disappear someone could take that information and continue. I had to start somewhere and I hoped that as things progressed there would be others that would want to take part and contribute. I have had some very interesting conversations with people over email about the site and helping but things take time.
Second, meta data in SVG files. Yes it would be great if the meta data in the SVG files was complete, but here is the reality. Of the 150K+ files I have from OCAL less than 1/3 had complete or even partial meta data. If all the files had complete meta data it would solve the problem of one site having control over all the data. It would be possible for sites to write the meta data back into the files, since not all files are created with Inkscape, and that is perhaps a good option, but it does add an extra layer of overhead to write data to the larger SVG files, that I know small sites would have problems with. I would agree a global id and a api service would probably be easier to manage and run. The question then becomes who builds and maintains that data?
I would be glad to be a part of the continueing conversation and look forward to getting to know more people in the Inkscape commuinity.
You're all overcomplicating things. To me CC0 is more of an ideal then a necessity, it should be made by few for anybody, not by everyone for all. And honestly this whole metadata control. the Inkscape becoming the ruler or the ocal drama just make me shiver. Trying to monopolyze or control something that should be free in the first place..
My two cents for the mirror sites: 1. new content should be labeled as such and be separated from the rest of the mirrored content; 2. build a trustable team of artists that provide original new content and understand CC0
Although I think I understand the inherent limitations in an open source community, and understand in first person the limitations of active and contributing personnel in the Inkscape community; I think it would be awesome for the Inkscape community to take a lead role in creating some kind of free/public-domain SVG/clipart library on the internet.
My original understanding was that the Inkscape project had been gifted a server (a year or 2 ago). To me, it sounded unlimited. However, I have learned that it is apparently not unlimited. Although I have not learned exactly what the limitations are.
But in any case, if we continue to apply our combined skills and creativity, I think it's possible we could reach such a goal of at least helping to create and maintain such a library!
Perhaps it could be administered (regarding intellectual rights), like Inkscape, by SFC? I mean, I assume it would be built using open source sw? This would lend more permanence to the project, rather than depending on individuals, whose fortunes and support can vary. Or would a website/library not really fall under SFC purview? Well, just a thought anyway. 🙂
Agree with robert mocci to an extent it would not be possible to force users to embrace entering Metadata you can try to educate people on the merits of doing so, but ultimately it depends on whether they can be bothered to do so, or their technical prowess, also there are many other tools out there that are capable of generating SVG files that do away with this completely, Like online SVG editors, and multifunction applications that can export to the SVG standard, but don't adopt all of it's capabilities
I am not sure how this universal ID thingy would work, I assume it would only apply to images generated in inkscape or added to inkscapes own collection, but it should probably take into consideration any enhancements made to the original artwork by the original author IE versioning or the plethora of remixes that appear, that usually make use of one or more already existing images.
I do however think a truely opensource approach could be worth pursuing, but I would like to see a site that relinqueshes ownership over the Metadata that inkscape might add themselves, so it can be added on other sites not operated my inkscape, this could help maintain consistancy, and cut down on duplicates, whilst also saving othe website operators the trouble of having to add all this information in themselves, like we are currently having to do.
Not to cause a riot, but why this may I ask? I understand the concept but why only one winner.
Welcome to the about screen contest for Inkscape 1.0!
From what I can see all of the runners up deserve a spot in the lime light, all of these files would not take up that much space in the official package when zipped, or why not use the winner image for offline intro image, but for anyone that is online cycle through the runners up, that way you get to show you appreciation for the time spent to all those that contributed their time and skill, and they get well deserved exposure, seems simple enough. As a bonus Inkscape looks less dull when loading.
Why we as a civilization continue to do things the way things have always been done, without questioning or experimenting always puzzles me. Maybe we are too used to our comfort zone or it's easier to just play it safe.
yes Brynn, I believe your right, should have posted this elsewhere, I need to familiarise myself with the forum better, was just browsing the site and came across all of the runners up, just figured it was / is a shame those designs may never be seen despite all the work that's gone into them. Even a link from the about to the runners up would be good, anyway enough said on this issue. Sorry, I will stay on point.
Seems everything shared can be whiped out and gone with the wind while they are still accessible by pure luck and not direct traces.
In that manner the more places the same drawing is shared at the better.
It is always stronger to have more than one place to share and keep information/ images. If one stops working, for whatever reason, there will still be a backup or a parallel website. Looking forward to your gitlab ideas Lazur!
In theory it sounds like a wonderful idea, but unfortunately the reality is, people will gravitate to the site they prefer to use, and if those sites hosting donated images are not wiling to share, then the entire collection will become fragmented, maybe not much of an issue at present but it may become so further down the line, as people have to eventually search further afield to find the image they want. As time goes by I am sure we will also start to see large segments of original content being lost forever as sites battle it out to profitability leading to some having to close down.
Inkscape could play a leading role by offering built in features like suggested earlier that would be a step towards making it a level playing field, but I doubt it would happen as it seems they may have a vested interest in insuring OCAL stays at the centre of it all, which is a shame as their business model appears to be in keeping all donated public domain images as a collection to themselves, lets hope for everyones sake OCAL manage to stay up perminently 2nd time around as next time it may not be possible for other sites to step in and recover all that is lost.
I'm not sure if the Inkscape project has any interest in keeping OCA viable. Some early developers of Inkscape were involved in creating the original OCAL. But I have not seen any evidence that they still are, except perhaps tangentially. (That automatic OCA feature in Inkscape never did work for me.)
I don't think I ever uploaded anything to OCA (because I'm just not a very good artist). But the behavior of those in charge has been questionable enough to me, that I would probably not use them, if I ever did want to share public domain images.
Personally I think having multiple libraries available on the internet would be preferable, and more healthy for the artistic community, than having just one.
And having said all that -- I still think either the Inkscape community or project could take a leading role in either creating or helping to maintain a library of pd images.
I am the frist to admit I could be wrong, but it seems that way to me,
The following link to Email communications posted to OCAL twitter page shows that in it's early development a member of the inkscape board was involved "perhaps voluntarily" with the it's day-to-day activities.
"Anyway, told him to contact Bryce and he just did after. As previously it was discussed Bryce would contact Rejon, wasn't sure if he got the message.
I personally sent Rejon half a dozen messages regarding the inkscape board/vectors team trying to contact for collaboration and neither got a reply."
Make of that what you will, and to be honest it doesn't really bother me if inkscape have OCAL back, but I do think since inkscape is opensource, and OCAL is not then their should be neutrality and more flexibility with your integrated gallery plugin, opening it up to other CC0 SVG hosters, so that not just OCAL results are served up "that is, when it eventually works again", at the moment inkscape is akin to being a radio that only picks up one channel, and since I've already mentioned, the clipart landscape is becoming more fragmented then it seems inkscape users will be the ones to ultimately lose out.
so unsure if this thread is dead, I will therefore attempt to post in both .
I downloaded the beta and found that the option to import from openclipart has indeed been removed which is understandable since the site is unreliable as Brynn quite rightly pointed out. I don't understand why the feature / function is being abandoned completely. I don't know enough about programming for me to advise on this, but why not open up the architecture to other sources. As an example give sites like freesvg.org or freesvgclipart.com the ability to go through an approval process with inkscape to have search capability included in the program, giving the user to ability to turn on or off various approved sources, or how about making a universal plugin that allows the average user who has download inkscape to add those sites details and api key manually.
Seems to me Inkscape are missing a golden opportunity to unite these ever expanding gallery of images found elsewhere under one roof, me personally I would much prefer to search directly within inkscape than to trawl 10+ sites every time I need an image.
The architecture is already open for any source that you want. Only someone interested needs to write a plugin, and the websites need to provide a stable API.
sorry I ment a plugin/extension that is fully intergrated and endoursed by inkscape / part of the official build not a third party solution, I know the option is there to write our own plugins but this is beyond my capability.
The free SVG sites recorded here give free SVG documents to vinyl and furthermore have some free SVG clipart for Cricut. These free SVG pictures can be downloaded straightforwardly from the sites referenced.
Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials free svg resources around the net
Inkscape.org
Here we have an official forum for various file types at the gallery.
In previous Inkscape versions you could access the svg database of openclipart.
Currently it has been down for a long time that it will be cut out for the next release.
So, what's there, similar in vein, an online collection of cc0 licensed svg images?
Let's see if we can name a few sites that offer the space for the public domain.
Freesvg.org is the first I came across.
They are still in development, and having a forum where future features can be discussed too.
Publicdomainvectors.org
This one has a trace bitmap function and an online svg editor too.
Kisscc0.com
Has both photos and cliparts.
That's of my first results.
Found a few more but there were some restrictions like only 50 downloads a day, attributing the host site and claiming you are not free to alter their images. When that's the whole point of the public domain, and certainly they dug their material from other cc0 sites, that's a huge no.
What do you think?
Do you use another site that you'd recommend?
Edit: adding in new links to the list once a new one appears.
Thank you everyone for the contribution!
So far, this is the list:
freesvg.org
publicdomainvectors.org
kisscc0
freesvgclipart.com
clipartzero.tk
wpclipart
free-images.org
publicdomainfiles.com
Hi Lazur,
Thank you for the good overview. I didn't know freesvg.org, but am glad to see it.
It is sad that openclipart is not (yet) online. We keep hoping.
Thanks for the info, Lazur!
Freesvg.org looks very much like the old OCA. I hope it has a longer run.
publicdomainvectors.org has an ad for shutterstock. It looks like they might be related - maybe the same owner?
Hi.
Glad you like it! Hope to make that list longer however that's pretty much I could find at the moment.
There are similar public domain image sources focusing on raster images -png-s- only, even of which are mirroring generated raster content from the vector sites.
Also found one which had a share-alike licensing policy and another one with a messy url.
Not sure who are providing these sites. They are sustained by ads -of which hopefully one won't see after registering as a member.
It is a common practice amongst the public domain image hosts to include links to stock images. It may not be the most welcomed one from a foss view but that's how the current market is working.
I'm also an advocate of public domain resources so I'm always looking for new sites to share. As for SVG, there isn't much. People is either scared about waiving their rights or they don't get what "public domain" actually is; it's common to see something sponsored as public, only to find out they request a link-back or put some other constrains. Also, some are tracing from stock pictures and releasing the derivate with a different license. Is this legit to do?
No, not really. It was a huge problem at openclipart ensuring that there is no copyright material uploaded.
The solution was community filtering by a set of "librarians".
Other practices I saw on the sites above were either they pick the material -which is in the public domain and up to their quality level- or that they hold no responsibility for the uploaded content over damages, "use at own risk".
In my humble opinion it's rather people are jealous that their content will be monetized by others and envy the profit. Thus hardly anyone puts in the effort for producing decent new material -which can help with no bills for them.
On the other hand, without alterations public domain cannot be sold as original work, so professionals rather use an image they pay for -because they can get explicit access to an appropriate license fitting their contract requirements.
Personally most of my uploads were about "raw material". Filter packs, quick examples, templates, remixes, testing, tutorials etc.
Not worried much if these are used for commercial work, although it's quite funny seeing how out of context it can get.
Like this one, where a trophy drawn from the openclipart scissors logo (commemorating my 2000th upload) appears on a mug.
I wondered about it since I learned what public domain means ( years ago ) and today I can say that not only I don't care how people use the stuff I release but I also can only praise them if they're able to make business with it. Afterall I make raw design and that means things aren't ready to be used as is. I recently started a project where i release stuff with a public domain license, but I'm mostly experimenting: how fast I am making stuff, or what people really are asking for.
Do you think the public domain is a turn off for people? Like, do they think it's only about old things found in books of centuries ago or do they found it untrustable and unreliable?
On a side note..I came to know some people think royalty-free is the same as public domain. And it isn't.
It seems like the free part is misleading.
Yes. Turn off for most professionals.
But it doesn't necessarily needs to be centuries old. It is different around the world, but mostly 80 years after the release date/death of the author material is released automatically into the public domain.
Some cases the author explicitely release material to the public domain. Like the US governmemt -thus every photo NASA releases is free for the public use.
Then, there is the Night of the liing dead which ended up in the public domain by accident.
I understand today there are many legal caveats, but I find it both challenging and exciting. Is Openclipart going to be opened again?
Anyway I found this site:
https://free-images.com/ Select vector on the search option
There is also the occasional svg on https://www.wpclipart.com/index.html
Just read the wikipedia page of openclipart.
It mentions freesvgclipart.com as a secondary mirror of the content. Interesting how it was not in the google search on the first pages. Nevertheless it seems to work reliable too.
Did you read the post? https://freesvgclipart.com/welcome-to-freesvgclipart/
He also mentions http://clipartzero.tk/
Should we include in this list SVG fonts and icons/illustrations?
Thank you for the note! Interesting, haven't seeen them.
Will edit the first post to add in new links.
Not sure about svg fonts and icons -are there specific sites which provide all material to the public domain?
For that matter "svg fonts" are a thing already? Where can you use them "properly"? I remembered that as an out of specs feature.
I used an SVG font for a custom website; and for what I know, are mostly used to display icons rather than letters. As for the icons I can't mention one site, however I'm sure there are sets of svg icons on sites like Github. Could we also link to them (if any)? Just asking if this is only for cliparts or anything made in svg
Did you find https://free-images.com/ or https://www.wpclipart.com/index.html to not be trustable? I see they weren't added.
I found another one mirroring openclipart, although not updated. http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/browse.php?q=all&s=0&o=popular&a=all&m=2
Oh.. and there were also the cliparts of Nicu http://clipart.nicubunu.ro/
The sole idea was to make a list of svg hosts where we could share inkscape works in large quantity and as a backup.
Guess now when redesigning the previous openclipart functionality we can take precautions and push for svg support regarding data management on the net
Like, one of the main problem with the database dump of openclipart is the tags were added to the site manually with respective descriptions.
Instead, the metadata should be filled with the information to the point one can track the image's history too.
Which will also need teaching inkscape users of the importance of this additional data.
More than that, one svg is mirrored around several sites so it may seem a reasonable idea adding an "original identification" or maybe even some global identification data so matching svg copies could be tracked on the net.
Encountered some sites too that held both vector and raster images. I'd personally prefer a database which focuses on one format only.
Like, there are sites that offer public domain music. Publicdomainfiles.com already offers tv shows too. It may be a good source for someone browsing randomly to find interesting new (old) material but for those that are focused on one format may not be effective.
Svg is more of a browser format -even if modifying, the original metadata should be kept somewhere. While raster images come and go. Designers pop it in photoshop -or krita, gimp...- and merge them with other images and "object identification" is gone. Thus it'd make less sense to edit a raster image when it's a mockup of dozens of other raster images -like one uses a paper texture as a background, or some bokeh overlay, custom brushes, splatters etc. to track all data in a metadata field of the raster image. It's impossible to track all the sources and that's the beauty how the result is a merged single new image.
With a musical reference with all strictness on copyright on every single material we couldn't have Paul's boutique.
Maybe will start another topic on free raster images mainly although feeling that less of inkscape drawing related.
Edit:
after second thought kisscc0 also shares raster images too. Adding your findings to the list.
That's an interesting one!
Never thought much of someone producing enough material to maintain a site of their own work. Quite motivating.
Oh.. now I get it. I thought this was more on the line "let's share resources with the requisites: svg and cc0" hence why I asked if we could link to stand-alone resources rather than whole sites dedicated only to that. Since you're asking for a backup, the only sites I can think of are archive.org or wikimedia commons. And I prefer the first
A useful list indeed.
For now, my preference goes to https://freesvgclipart.com.
The webmaster did alone an incredible job to bring back online most of OCAL svg, with metadatata, including author attribution (using original OCAL nicknames).
Even if I understand and fully accept the concept of public domain, I personally appreciate there's still a place on Internet to find who did them.
But a site depending on a single person... That's pretty weak as warranty. So I'm a bit pessimist on its capacity to cross the time.
Just came across this:
Lol... When I log in, I just get that same page. My clipart isn't there, only an empty upload form. Still looks like scam to me.
Oh, and the kiwiirc plugin.
I will believe they are back when they show the clipart, and when their words make sense and aren't only asking for more donations.
Yesterday I could chat for a while with Rejon.
Tough year as he put it.
If I got it right the whole previous infrastructure had the barn door open (as experienced several times...) and currently he is in progress of rebuilding from scratch.
That may be a reason why we cannot see any of the uploads -and probably why the upload option not working either?
Anyway, told him to contact Bryce and he just did after. As previously it was discussed Bryce would contact Rejon, wasn't sure if he got the message.
I personally sent Rejon half a dozen messages regarding the inkscape board/vectors team trying to contact for collaboration and neither got a reply.
Also he told on the chat that he protected someone not to became the next victim and that he became a new father this year.
Guessing he is beyond busy with life although he never grabbed the helping hands offered nor didn't he let us speculate which is the worse.
I'm thinking inkscape will need to focus on the issue of "data security" and be the leader in web focused svg sharing.
That is, better support and more organised metadata section,
stamp of original "global id", date of creation etc.
So that we could share work parallel through the listed sites in the first post and track those svg-s.
Which also needs those sites to inherit tags, descriptions etc. automatically embedded into the metadata that can be used throughout the database.
As this point the biggest issue is the openclipart database being available without any tags and descriptions.
If it would get the positive support from those hosts maybe the process could be further preserved by involving it in the future svg specs.
Planning to open a gitlab issue on it someday.
Reading the message on the new homepage, it comes across a bit just wanting money, as before. I don't see how I can search for clipart. I see uploads, login, donate, and email, but no search. I'm not sure if I ever reg'd there previously, and not sure if I want to now.
Would have to actually participate in the community discussions and community governance part, to find out if it's a sincere but badly worded effort to rebuild, or another xmas scam.
That bit of chat that you shared sounds strange. When he says "daily attacking" is he still saying there's a ddos attack? That's really hard for me to grasp (although of course I'm no expert).
I'm glad he contacted Bryce, but in my personal experience, Bryce doesn't have much time for Inkscape right now. Doubt if he could help with OCA either.
I found the wikipedia article quite interesting. But it refers to OCA as "was", all the way through. And it ends without offering any hopes for the future.
Lazur, if you think it would be helpful for others from Inkscape user community to participate, I would be glad to attend any chat meetings, as far as the community discussions or governance, along with you. I think this is a worthwhile project for Vectors team, and Inkscape Project in general. I don't have any real skills to contribute, other than paying attention, being a witness, and offering common sense thoughts, ideas, and opinions. But I'd be glad to offer that much, if it would be helpful.
Or, if better to just start whole new project from Vectors team, I can offer the same. Minimal experience working with websites and webhost, but willing to learn.
I wonder if https://panel.tuxfamily.org/ might be interested? They're free/opensource friendly hosting.
Honestly I'm not so positive about this comeback either with the vague message given.
Raised my concerns and Rejon agreed on giving a better hint for the members but so far haven't seen much sign of that.
Only "upgrade" was that now one can actualy upload clipart so the functionality seems fixed.
Can imagine Rejon got personal attacks from an unrelated project of his but then again openclipart was put together without any concerns in the beginning.
Like you could query generating raster images out of any svg-s in the database at any given size simultaneously and svg-s were accessible with the right url in their entirety.
Both of which are really a big security hazard. One can add html content in the svg and the onsite rendering hauls the server down.
Me not being an expert on it by any means but I'd probably look for a solution where the svg database is stored in a cloud and the raster content to be rendered by gateway "mirrors" so that even if the site is being attacked by ddos/mass querying the content, the core would be intact. Maybe some thumbnails getting not available at a few times, but you can still download the svg from one server or the other.
Then the other thing would be the previously mentioned proper svg metadata filling inside inkscape and their automatic scraping on site.
And probably never actually rendering an svg without embedding it first -so parts of the functionality could be blocked at any point.
I'm certainly no expert either. But here's hoping it can somehow be worked out!
Do you have to reg to be able to search for images?
Currently that doesn't work either. Noone can access any uploaded images -although one could upload several ones blindly...
Only extra librarians have is a widget to access freenode irc chat with the #openclipart channel.
ok, thanks again 🙂
I'm still not convinced it's not a scam. I mean... who knows if the upload form doesn't just skip the part of saving the upload?
Tried it the day before. Apart from the thumbnails not working correctly, or that you cannot search for your own uploads, it works.
https://openclipart.org/detail/318611/test-upload
So now all the tags are available in the database if anyone could scour that.
Indeed, that looks promising.
Thanks for sharing!
I'd be curious to hear from @bryce about this.
Hi fellow inscapers,
I can attest to everything stated by cyanaidecupcake, as I watched in shock and amusement as it unfolded.
When OCAL went down we were effectively left without a source of clipart and provide with no explanation other than the site had been taken down due to DDS, for a number of months the home page offered no real explanation or updates on it's return and instead seemed to serve one purpose, to elicit further donations, misleading the general public into thinking access would be given to anyone that donated. Lot's of people on twitter were saying, I've donated how do I now get access.
After a period of about 6 months OCAL appeared to be dead and the community had enough, people got their heads together and started sharing the images they had gathered, soon afterwards 3 websites emerged to serve the OCAL community 1 died which left freesvg.org and freesvgclipart.com who promised in future to provide a downloadable backup, so the collection would always be safe even if their sites went down.
Freesvg were making steps to provide the community with an inkscape plugin, but since OCAL has now returned this will probably get abandoned, as there is no point wasting precious developer time, on something that wont get used if OCAL is to control the SVG monopoly.
https://forum.freesvg.org/viewtopic.php?pid=391#p391
https://forum.freesvg.org/viewtopic.php?id=140
I am glad to see inkscape is turning 1, and to celebrate this occasion you appear to want to bring back OCAL integration, but you need to be aware of the verifiable back story as the truth can often be manipulated.
I am also happy to see OCAL has returned, but I do think they have some explaining to do and a apology woudn't go a mis either, especially to small business that depended on their content like small games developers and many other micro economies. They also need to recognise, they caused the emergance of alternative popup sites, which has changed the way in which the content in now distributed, I think people now want to see more of a collaborative effort between sites hosting SVG content, and more importantly for there to always be a backup available to the general public.
It should be noted that I am a moderator on freesvg.org but I am unbiaised in this regard, these comments are my own and do not reflect freesvg oppinion.
I would suggest these new sites not fold up yet, until we see some sincere effort to mend fences and restore the previous goodwill. I'm not convinced the new oca is sincere.
It looks like it's sort of possible to search nearly 5000 pages of clipart. But as far as I can tell, you can only search one page at a time. There does not appear to be a keyword search. I mean, that seems rather insulting to me. Woo-hoo, gifted to the community, but only sort of??? Did I miss the search field? Am I just too impatient? A few days ago, there was no search at all. The whole public story is just so strange.
By the way, this is a little different, but I just noticed Inkscape has a new sponsor vectorstock.com
Thank you CyanideCupcake and robsmithncl for joining in!
Glad to hear those points.
Didn't know how deep well we'll dive this topic into but glad there is discussion.
Openclipart is being under rebuilding at the moment (from scratch?), thus the previous features are lacking.
A day ago we were talking about the issue in the vectors team and besides the technical issue of how to maintain "Schrödinger's" cliparts, there is admittedly a lacking overall quality of the artwork presented.
It may be so and we can also discuss in a topic which strategy to take on if we ever want to build a community based cc0 sharing site and/or want to be part of the development of those.
In which way cliparts should be filtered from the spam, which way to maintain the quality and run the site, providing the hosting fee, expansion etc.
The other issue is, wether inkscape is supporting the online community of cc0 drawings shared with built in features.
Currently openclipart is still within and broken. Admittedly I never used that feature before. But as someone who mainly uploaded files into the library I'm more concerned on the upload part.
How to avoid online images go under without a trace.
With svg-s all the tags, descriptions and whatnot could be held in the metadata of the files, and that data should be accessible for browsers. However that wasn't the case and all and at openclipart you had to manually fill in tag and description fields, wwhich didn't transfer right from one mirroring site to another.
Seems everything shared can be whiped out and gone with the wind while they are still accessible by pure luck and not direct traces.
In that manner the more places the same drawing is shared at the better. Which may call for a batch upload protocol preferably that all these sites could accept as well.
On the browsing part, if multiple libraries are available, one may not like to come across the same image multiple times.
Like, one is looking for images of apples and trying to take as much of them as possible. It is a big waste of time if one needs to weed out multiple instances of the same image just to come across other variants of the fruit.
Therefore a global unique id and original sharing info is better embedded to the uploaded svg-s, so that we can track where it was uploaded first and when.
These ideas I'm chewing on before listing them on gitlab.
I am lead to beleive all of the goodies, you know the thing you've come to expect from your typical image sharing platform are behind the registration wall. You can't register, at present only registered users have the ability to search and librarians have the ability to upload. This we are told is essential for testing.
What I don't understand coming from having a little experience in website construction myself, is why they are having to completely rebuild the site, if as they claim all of the code and the collection were safe, this doesn't make sense as I can recover my own sites restoring entire functionality within 30 mins of downtime. Surely it would have made better sense to reinstate the old website, then develope a newer site on a subdomain, or within a test environment, and this is speculative but if they are having to rebuild as they have identified security flaws, then shouldn't they have focused all their attention on fixing those, instead of rebuilding from scratch.
I have no reason to doubt they will be back, personally I think they had abandoned the site when one of their founders in Syria was executed, and the only reason it's coming back now is because 1) there are alternatives out their that are prooving they can provide just as good of a user experience, as OCAL has in less time and at less expense, it's the old spacex vs ULA dilema which has to be embarassing for them, and 2) Inkscape have personally reached out and requested they resurface and probably 3) they may have received an injection in cash as fabricatorz their parent organisation, now appears to be operating as a foundation. Whatever the future holds, I hope both the other projects manage to shadow OCAL to keep them in check.
An upload to cloud feature operated by inkscape would be a good idea, where any images saved by inkscape users are held within a central repository which all registered clipart sites could gain access to, allowing them to make the images available to their users, this could also be done automatically by pushing the images to those participating websites through the use of API, but could also be fraught with problems.
Thanks for your time, and the oportuntity to get my point across.
Hello all. My name is Lee I am the guy behind https://freesvgclipart.com/ and there is just so much to say it is hard to know where to start.
First I guess thanks for the kind words for those that have visited the site. I realize that my site suffers from some of the same problems that OCAL suffers from, mainly it is only me running the site. Yes there are some contributors but at the end of the day the only person that has access to the data and files is only me. By releasing the files and the data on Google Drive I hope that if I were to disappear someone could take that information and continue. I had to start somewhere and I hoped that as things progressed there would be others that would want to take part and contribute. I have had some very interesting conversations with people over email about the site and helping but things take time.
Second, meta data in SVG files. Yes it would be great if the meta data in the SVG files was complete, but here is the reality. Of the 150K+ files I have from OCAL less than 1/3 had complete or even partial meta data. If all the files had complete meta data it would solve the problem of one site having control over all the data. It would be possible for sites to write the meta data back into the files, since not all files are created with Inkscape, and that is perhaps a good option, but it does add an extra layer of overhead to write data to the larger SVG files, that I know small sites would have problems with. I would agree a global id and a api service would probably be easier to manage and run. The question then becomes who builds and maintains that data?
I would be glad to be a part of the continueing conversation and look forward to getting to know more people in the Inkscape commuinity.
You're all overcomplicating things. To me CC0 is more of an ideal then a necessity, it should be made by few for anybody, not by everyone for all. And honestly this whole metadata control. the Inkscape becoming the ruler or the ocal drama just make me shiver. Trying to monopolyze or control something that should be free in the first place..
My two cents for the mirror sites: 1. new content should be labeled as such and be separated from the rest of the mirrored content; 2. build a trustable team of artists that provide original new content and understand CC0
Anyway, I don't know if I mentioned those before:
http://www.clker.com/
http://www.i2clipart.com/
http://runeman.org/clipart/2019/
https://leungwensen.github.io/svg-icon/ Those are icons, mit licensed. Is it compatible with the topic?
Although I think I understand the inherent limitations in an open source community, and understand in first person the limitations of active and contributing personnel in the Inkscape community; I think it would be awesome for the Inkscape community to take a lead role in creating some kind of free/public-domain SVG/clipart library on the internet.
My original understanding was that the Inkscape project had been gifted a server (a year or 2 ago). To me, it sounded unlimited. However, I have learned that it is apparently not unlimited. Although I have not learned exactly what the limitations are.
But in any case, if we continue to apply our combined skills and creativity, I think it's possible we could reach such a goal of at least helping to create and maintain such a library!
Perhaps it could be administered (regarding intellectual rights), like Inkscape, by SFC? I mean, I assume it would be built using open source sw? This would lend more permanence to the project, rather than depending on individuals, whose fortunes and support can vary. Or would a website/library not really fall under SFC purview? Well, just a thought anyway. 🙂
Agree with robert mocci to an extent it would not be possible to force users to embrace entering Metadata you can try to educate people on the merits of doing so, but ultimately it depends on whether they can be bothered to do so, or their technical prowess, also there are many other tools out there that are capable of generating SVG files that do away with this completely, Like online SVG editors, and multifunction applications that can export to the SVG standard, but don't adopt all of it's capabilities
I am not sure how this universal ID thingy would work, I assume it would only apply to images generated in inkscape or added to inkscapes own collection, but it should probably take into consideration any enhancements made to the original artwork by the original author IE versioning or the plethora of remixes that appear, that usually make use of one or more already existing images.
I do however think a truely opensource approach could be worth pursuing, but I would like to see a site that relinqueshes ownership over the Metadata that inkscape might add themselves, so it can be added on other sites not operated my inkscape, this could help maintain consistancy, and cut down on duplicates, whilst also saving othe website operators the trouble of having to add all this information in themselves, like we are currently having to do.
Just an idea,
Not to cause a riot, but why this may I ask? I understand the concept but why only one winner.
Welcome to the about screen contest for Inkscape 1.0!
From what I can see all of the runners up deserve a spot in the lime light, all of these files would not take up that much space in the official package when zipped, or why not use the winner image for offline intro image, but for anyone that is online cycle through the runners up, that way you get to show you appreciation for the time spent to all those that contributed their time and skill, and they get well deserved exposure, seems simple enough. As a bonus Inkscape looks less dull when loading.
Why we as a civilization continue to do things the way things have always been done, without questioning or experimenting always puzzles me. Maybe we are too used to our comfort zone or it's easier to just play it safe.
The last message seems off topic for this thread. If you can't find a thread to post it in, you could start a new topic.
Fyi, there has been some talk of adding a splash screen in Inkscape, but it probably won't make it into 1.0. maybe 1.1.
yes Brynn, I believe your right, should have posted this elsewhere, I need to familiarise myself with the forum better, was just browsing the site and came across all of the runners up, just figured it was / is a shame those designs may never be seen despite all the work that's gone into them. Even a link from the about to the runners up would be good, anyway enough said on this issue. Sorry, I will stay on point.
Hi,
I agree with Lazur,
It is always stronger to have more than one place to share and keep information/ images. If one stops working, for whatever reason, there will still be a backup or a parallel website.
Looking forward to your gitlab ideas Lazur!
In theory it sounds like a wonderful idea, but unfortunately the reality is, people will gravitate to the site they prefer to use, and if those sites hosting donated images are not wiling to share, then the entire collection will become fragmented, maybe not much of an issue at present but it may become so further down the line, as people have to eventually search further afield to find the image they want. As time goes by I am sure we will also start to see large segments of original content being lost forever as sites battle it out to profitability leading to some having to close down.
Inkscape could play a leading role by offering built in features like suggested earlier that would be a step towards making it a level playing field, but I doubt it would happen as it seems they may have a vested interest in insuring OCAL stays at the centre of it all, which is a shame as their business model appears to be in keeping all donated public domain images as a collection to themselves, lets hope for everyones sake OCAL manage to stay up perminently 2nd time around as next time it may not be possible for other sites to step in and recover all that is lost.
I'm not sure if the Inkscape project has any interest in keeping OCA viable. Some early developers of Inkscape were involved in creating the original OCAL. But I have not seen any evidence that they still are, except perhaps tangentially. (That automatic OCA feature in Inkscape never did work for me.)
I don't think I ever uploaded anything to OCA (because I'm just not a very good artist). But the behavior of those in charge has been questionable enough to me, that I would probably not use them, if I ever did want to share public domain images.
Personally I think having multiple libraries available on the internet would be preferable, and more healthy for the artistic community, than having just one.
And having said all that -- I still think either the Inkscape community or project could take a leading role in either creating or helping to maintain a library of pd images.
I am the frist to admit I could be wrong, but it seems that way to me,
The following link to Email communications posted to OCAL twitter page shows that in it's early development a member of the inkscape board was involved "perhaps voluntarily" with the it's day-to-day activities.
https://lists.freedesktop.org/pipermail/clipart/
and to quote Lazur above:
"Anyway, told him to contact Bryce and he just did after. As previously it was discussed Bryce would contact Rejon, wasn't sure if he got the message.
I personally sent Rejon half a dozen messages regarding the inkscape board/vectors team trying to contact for collaboration and neither got a reply."
Make of that what you will, and to be honest it doesn't really bother me if inkscape have OCAL back, but I do think since inkscape is opensource, and OCAL is not then their should be neutrality and more flexibility with your integrated gallery plugin, opening it up to other CC0 SVG hosters, so that not just OCAL results are served up "that is, when it eventually works again", at the moment inkscape is akin to being a radio that only picks up one channel, and since I've already mentioned, the clipart landscape is becoming more fragmented then it seems inkscape users will be the ones to ultimately lose out.
I see the thread on this appears to have migrated over to https://inkscape.org/forums/questions/import-clip-art-openclipartorg/
so unsure if this thread is dead, I will therefore attempt to post in both .
I downloaded the beta and found that the option to import from openclipart has indeed been removed which is understandable since the site is unreliable as Brynn quite rightly pointed out. I don't understand why the feature / function is being abandoned completely. I don't know enough about programming for me to advise on this, but why not open up the architecture to other sources. As an example give sites like freesvg.org or freesvgclipart.com the ability to go through an approval process with inkscape to have search capability included in the program, giving the user to ability to turn on or off various approved sources, or how about making a universal plugin that allows the average user who has download inkscape to add those sites details and api key manually.
Seems to me Inkscape are missing a golden opportunity to unite these ever expanding gallery of images found elsewhere under one roof, me personally I would much prefer to search directly within inkscape than to trawl 10+ sites every time I need an image.
The architecture is already open for any source that you want. Only someone interested needs to write a plugin, and the websites need to provide a stable API.
sorry I ment a plugin/extension that is fully intergrated and endoursed by inkscape / part of the official build not a third party solution, I know the option is there to write our own plugins but this is beyond my capability.
Found this today: https://www.svgrepo.com/
A lot of the .SVGs are CC0, but some might come with a different license.
thanks
The free SVG sites recorded here give free SVG documents to vinyl and furthermore have some free SVG clipart for Cricut. These free SVG pictures can be downloaded straightforwardly from the sites referenced.