Using KankiVG in a commercial project

[Salvador Fernando Madrigal Rodriguez]

Hi guys.

Can somebody explain me in which cases can I use the project for creating commercial products? Let's say an Android application?

Thanks.

[Germánico Baltar]

Salvador,

KanjiVG website (https://kanjivg.tagaini.net/) points to this license,

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm no expert in this matter, but it would seem to me that you could indeed use this project for your own commercial product(s). BUT 

1) You must credit the author (see "Atttribution)", link to the original work, etc. Basic courtesy stuff IMHO.

2) Your commercial product is then bound by the same license (see "ShareAlike"), so a third party would be able to take your product, modify it, and resell it OR give it away for free without asking your permission or paying you any money (just giving you "credit" for your work in the form of an acknowledgement, as per above), as long as this third party's product is offered under the same license.

 Thus, I would assume that you are supposed to make your source code freely available so that it can be reused by other developers.

Again, that's just my understanding. If anyone else knows more and wants to add, clarify or correct any points, please post a new comment.

[Enrique Saúl González]

Hello everyone,

It would be great to have some official clarification on this, ideally from Ulrich.

I even received advice from an intellectual property layer on this case (making a commercial software product that uses the KanjiVG data) and she said it was not clear to her whether that means the whole resulting project is bound by the Share-Alike requirement or just any parts that could be said to be a modification or improvement over the KanjiVG data. 

I think the Creative Commons organization itself has said the license is not clear when it comes to software products.

As an example, Kanshudo, does fulfill the attribution requirement, but it does NOT seem like Kanshudo itself is on a Share-Alike license or open-sourced anywhere. Kanshudo is listed in the KanjiVG website so I assume they're not been found to be on breach of license.

Thanks in advance,