Openclipart, also called Open Clip Art Library, is an online media repository of free-content

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

clip art Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...

. The project hosts over 160,000 free graphics and has billed itself as "the largest community of artists making the best free original clipart for you to use for absolutely any reason". The website was brought down for several months by a reported

DDoS attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...

in April 2019; access to the library via other means was still possible, including partial copies of the library that were hosted on several

mirror site Mirror sites or mirrors are replicas of other websites or any network node. The concept of mirroring applies to network services accessible through any protocol, such as HTTP or FTP. Such sites have different URLs than the original site, but hos ...

s. The site's search feature was restored in May 2020.

History

The Openclipart library (OCAL) was established in early 2004 by Jon Phillips and Bryce Harrington, who had worked together to develop the

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

vector graphics suites

Sodipodi Sodipodi was an open-source vector graphics editor, discontinued in 2004. It is the predecessor to Inkscape. Development Sodipodi started as a fork of Gill, a vector-graphics program written by Raph Levien. The main author was Lauris Kaplinski ...

and its successor,

Inkscape Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor used to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. Other formats can be imported and exported. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g. rectang ...

. The OCAL project initially grew out of a project started by Christian Schaller (Uraeus), who, on October 26, 2003, issued a challenge on the Gnome Desktop website for Sodipodi users to create a collection of

flags A flag is a piece of textile, fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic desi ...

SVG format Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium sin ...

. The flag project progressed very well, resulting in a collection of over 90 flags made publicly available in SVG format, and broadened the project's goals to include generic clipart. The project became known as Openclipart by April 2004, with the stated aim of making all its contributed images freely available in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

. In the early stages of the Openclipart project, the website lacked thumbnails and was difficult to browse. Downloadable Openclipart packages were released to help propagate the images in the library, and were available directly from the Openclipart website: as an add-on for various

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s such as

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

, and as an NSIS installer for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. Each package included most of the clipart to date, and they were manually sorted into categories. The Openclipart package version 0.20 was released in 2010. The Openclipart packages received a few more incremental updates during 2010, mostly for seasonal clipart. An overhauled Openclipart 2.0 website went live as a beta in February 2010 with a full release in March 2010. The site introduced a change from the old

ccHost ccHost is a web-based media hosting engine upon which Creative Commons' ccMixter remix web community is built. The software is written in PHP and uses the MySQL database server. In 2005 it won Linux World's award for Best Open Source solution. ...

software to the new AGPL-based

Aiki Framework Aiki Framework is a PHP + MYSQL (LAMP) web application framework that allows designers and programmers to create and work with existing content management systems from the web. The Fabricatorz global production company was its commercial steward ...

, a content management system made for Openclipart 2.0. The new site allowed anyone to easily browse and add to the Openclipart collection. Jon Phillips, Andy Fitzsimon,

Bassel Safadi Bassel Khartabil (22 May 1981 – 3 October 2015; ar, باسل خرطبيل), also known as Bassel Safadi ( ar, باسل صفدي), was a Palestinian Syrian open-source software developer. He was detained without trial by the Syrian gover ...

, Michi, Ronaldo Barbachano, and Brad Phillips added image

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image ...

s and improved search functions made the Openclipart library more user-friendly, which contributed to higher site traffic. The site was receiving over 5,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views daily. The 3.0 website release incorporated allowed members to "favorite" clip art, and provided an image-editing feature that made image remixing significantly easier. On April 15, 2013, Openclipart launched a new logo and updated their website design with a "scissors" logo. On March 12, 2014, Openclipart announced that Inkpad, an open-source drawing app for

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

s, had released library integration to make the entire collection available to its users.

Lockdown and attempts at mirroring the library

On April 19, 2019, the site was taken offline by what was initially reported as a

distributed denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...

(DDoS attack), though Jon Philips, one of the site's founders, appeared to be a victim of

identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was co ...

. All pages on OpenClipart were redirected to a page asking users to donate money "to support protection". The message was updated on December 25, 2019, with a statement that the site was being "gifted to the community" and that new files could once again be uploaded to the library. By scraping, most of the library was recovered and hosted on FreeSVG.org. A second mirror was established at FreeSVGClipArt.com. In early May 2020, the website's Twitter account announced that the search feature had been re-enabled. Cliparts (examples)

Packages and apps

* Inkpad for iPad, with Openclipart Integration. * The vector graphics editor

can import vector graphics online from Openclipart to one's current workspace. (For Inkscape on Windows, one needs the latest build, ≥ 0.49.) * Microsoft Office app * Google Docs Add-on * LibreOffice extension * iOS Clipart, iOS PosterMaker
Clipart
Search, Openclipart for Android * Clipart plugin for WordPress * Clipart plugin for

Moodle Moodle is a free and open-source learning management system written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Moodle is used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other online learning projects in sch ...

* Linux distributions Some

s, including

Mandriva Mandriva S.A. was a public software company specializing in Linux and open-source software. Its corporate headquarters was in Paris, and it had development centers in Metz, France and Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A. was the developer and maint ...

and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

, include many of the Openclipart collection releases packaged as SVG, PNG or

OpenDocument The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...

-format files. These distributions are based on the 2005 pre-ccHost release, since regular releases stopped after the switch to ccHost software. Openclipart 0.19, the first version released after the switch, was released in March 2009. With the release of version 2.0 and updated packages, distributions have bugs filed in their respective bug trackers to begin packaging Openclipart once more. Openclipart was included on the cover discs in ''

Linux Format ''Linux Format'' is the UK's first Linux-specific magazine, and as of 2013 was the best-selling Linux title in the UK. It is also exported to many countries worldwide. It is published by Future plc (which produces a number of other computer magazi ...

'' issues 123 and 132 as a package of browseable SVG files from the Openclipart collection.Linux Format Issue 132
/ref>

References

External links

* {{Creative Commons Free image galleries Open content projects Scalable Vector Graphics Internet properties established in 2004 Creative Commons-licensed websites Public domain 2004 establishments in the United States

History

Lockdown and attempts at mirroring the library

Packages and apps

See also

References

External links