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 * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...

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 cyberattack 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 conne ...

in April 2019. 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 and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

vector graphics suites Sodipodi and its successor,

Inkscape Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagrams, and flowcharts. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at ...

. 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 A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depicted ...

website for Sodipodi users to create a collection of

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

SVG format Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector graphics 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 to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

. 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 that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

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 Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. 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 MySQL () is an Open-source software, open-source relational database management s ...

software to the new AGPL-based Aiki Framework, 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, 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-o ...

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 tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

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 cyberattack 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 conne ...

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

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

. 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.

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 project ...

* Linux distributions Some

s, including

Mandriva Mandriva S.A. was a Public company, 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 deve ...

and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, 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, standardized as ISO 26300, is an open file format for word processor, word processing documents, spreadsheets, Presentation program, presentations and ...

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

'' issues 123 and 132 as a package of browseable SVG files from the Openclipart collection.

References

External links

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

History

Lockdown and attempts at mirroring the library

Packages and apps

See also

References

External links