In a blog post, Gary Taxali takes significant umbrage against what he believes is a common perception of graphic artists. As he says:

Google calls me and wants my work for their new search engine all over the web, the fee? Nothing.

Jens Alke responded in the comments by saying:

So the more I think about this, it seems like a double standard where artists are fine with using the fruits of open source projects, but insulted at the thought of actually contributing to one.

He explains these comments more carefully on his own blog.

My own opinion is that both Taxali and Alke are right in their own way, but that Alke didn’t really get why Taxali and other graphic artists and illustrators were angry.

On loving your artists

I’m going to go ahead and say it here: We don’t appreciate graphic design. I’m not sure who “we” are (computer users, Western civilization, any variety of other groups), but I’m confident that however we define “we”, I can argue that we don’t “see” the design that is all around us. But someone had to make it. It had to come from somewhere. Someone was paid to figure out how to appeal to us psychologically through form. Usually, they aren’t paid what they’re worth.

I’m guilty of this. When I first started From Concentrate Software, I needed an icon for MacDialer. I found an aspiring and talented graphic designer that would create the icon for $100. Considering how much work that usually goes into icon design, I probably took advantage of him. Of course, at the time I didn’t know any better and neither did he. As I’ve created more apps and designed my own icons, I’ve found a much greater appreciation for what goes into making great icons. I’m also willing to pay more.

If I’m selling something, I ought to pay for an icon. It isn’t right for me to brand myself with someone else’s work and make money from that without fully appreciating the work that went into the brand. Full appreciation means sharing some of the wealth. I think this is where there’s a significant problem with providing free images to Chrome.

There is great significance in that Google has requested free artwork. They didn’t use something that was offered, they actively solicited it (if I understand the problem correctly). And although Chromium is an open source project, Google expects to make money on it, either by branding and offering other services or through targetted ad sales. The artwork provided to Google would add value to Chrome but the returns on this value would not be seen by the artist.

If Google were to solicit me for free source code for Chrome, I’d need some kind of payoff. I’m not in the business of giving hours and hours of my time to a multinational corporation without some kind of recompense. Of course, there are means other than money to appreciate the time and work that someone puts into a project, but I haven’t seen any other offer listed. It is entirely appropriate for Google to make use of something that I’ve freely and willingly provided on the internet, but it is inappropriate for them to ask me to produce something specifically for them and not try to make it worth my time. How much someone is paid tells them how much they are worth. To be not offered anything is tantamount to saying that they are worthless (or that their services are so cheap or common that they can be had easily somewhere else).

Sure, the artists could have written it off as advertising costs. A few bylines in the attribution sections may divert a few clients their way. But would it have been worth it? If someone is giving up so much of their time, there had better be more than a byline in a credits file or a mention on an About window. Those same hours could have produced much more exposure. If Google was not offering payment nor additional recognition for these works, then they were indeed undervaluing the work of the designers.

As Alke says, many programmers have freely chosen to be a part of the Chrome, and Webkit teams, but were they solicited or did they volunteer? This leads me to some internal questions: Are programmers in a community that creates the social norm that participation in an open source project is a good thing? Is this communial norm found in artists communities? The basic question is: Why is it that a project can gather so many programmers but so few artists? Does this create the need to solicit from designers?

These are all open ended questions that I’m merely posing. I’m curious what the answers are and how one could ask them. Regardless, I stand on my original principle: It is wrong to solicit from someone for a profitable project without any sort of appreciation offered.

On artistic open source

If I’m reading Alke correctly, he thinks that graphic artists are opposed to giving away their work. I will retract this statement based on arguments or a word from Alke himself, but this is the core of what I read in “Open Source Good, Giving Away Art Bad?” Here, I want to make a few distinctions.

First, I believe that most people, with the exception of the most hard-minded open source developers (perhaps those who live and breathe the GPL) are in some ways sympathetic with the designers. No one wants to give their talents away, especially when those talents can be used to earn income.

Second, I’m sure that most of the designers (perhaps with the exception of the most narcissistic) understand the value in giving back to a community, even an online one. Most of the designers that I know understand that they can give away art for the purpose of creating a better community and adding beauty.

Third, the issue here is not about artistic perceptions of open source. As I’ve articulated above, I don’t think that the artists are opposing open source, but rather opposing solicitations for a profitable project without remuneration.

This being said, I think that there is some kind of divide in the open source community between software designers and graphic artists. I have been a member of a couple of open source projects and several open source communities (from SourceForge to Github). I’m sold on the open source project (although I haven’t drunk the GPL Kool-Aid) and contribute source regularly.

I also use “open source” art. Most of my applications start with some icons that were available through freely distributed icon packs. These provide a pleasant interface until I can design icons suited for my application or hire someone else to design them. I mention these to say that I’ve probably got half a dozen application-ready icon packs on my hard drive that I used regularly when prototyping and developing applications. I keep them out of final applications because specific icons are always better than generalized icons, but they are exceptionally handy and could be used in a final application (as per the copyright that’s associated with them). They are, to an extent, open source art.

There’s also tons of other icon packs that are freely downloaded and used, especially for system resources. There are lots of desktop pictures, repeatable tiling patterns for website design, and tutorials for creating Photoshop resources. Are these tutorials really so much different from source code? There are tons of image resources available for free (as in beer and speech) on the internet. We can’t say that artists don’t believe in free distribution.

But it’s a different type of open source from what programmers do. Programmers provide not only the final product, but also means of creating that product. It is very rare that you can get the Photoshop or Illustrator file from which the final icon was rendered. I’ve yet to see a group of artists collaborate on a long term project in the same manner as an open source application (although, please comment or email me if you know of one).

Icon designers and graphic artists have contributed their time and talent to open source applications. Where else did Adium get its duck? Although, in a cursory glance through Adiums 1.3.3 source, I didn’t see any of the files that made the image icons, just the completed .png, .tif, or .icns files. Perhaps I overlooked it (and I was just glancing quickly for the purposes of this article), but I didn’t see it. So, is there this double standard between artists and open source?

I think that programmers and artists have a fundamental difference when it comes to thinking about open source. I think that programmers do it better (but I may be biased). I’d love to see more the artistic “source.” That is, I’d like to see how an image got to where it is. Give me revision control so I can go through the creation of an image step-by-step. Give me the “source code”, the raw PSD of an image, so that I can go in and tweak or adjust it in its entirety, not just put a badge over or a backdrop behind it. Give me more freedom with the open source images.

Of course, I’m mired in the programmer realm. These things may already exist and I simply don’t see them. I’m more than willing to change my mind provided adequate information, but for now I’ll say this: programmers and artists on the whole contribute just as much to freely available projects but do so in different ways. Of the two, programmers do it better. We’ve created the tools (especially revision control) and provide not only the finished product, but also the steps to read that product. This is the programmer’s standard for open source projects. Artists are still operating, on the whole, on a freeward model of distribution. The final product is given away, but the means of generation of that product is rarely released. This is contribution to open source, but it isn’t open source in itself.