This page presents a proposal for "iconifying" a selection of Free Software licenses. That is, it presents each license as a collection of icons, where each icon corresponds to an important feature of the license (for instance, if it includes a patent license). Obviously, an iconification scheme is a reduction of the license and can not take the place of actually reading and understanding the license. At the same time, such a scheme can play a role in aiding understanding or fostering cooperation between different license communities when those licenses are "roughly the same".

There may be errors in the classification or assignment of icons to particular licenses. If you find that the icon scheme does not match your understanding of the license, please contact the author (Adriaan de Groot, groot@fsfeurope.org).

There may be omissions in the classification; either your favorite license is missing, or maybe some important feature of all licenses (for instance, is it available in your language?) is missing. In these cases, contact the author (Adriaan de Groot). Whether a characteristic of a license warrants an icon depends on its importance in considering compatibility between licenses and its prevalence in Free Software licenses. Remember, icons are no replacement for reading and genuine understanding.

Credits: this scheme is inspired by the Creative Commons license family and its representation in icons. Thanks also to Mignon Engel and chaos008 for producing the icons now in use. You can switch themes with your web browser's CSS style switcher.