"KDE" name usage (ADVENTURE NOVEL)

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of an unusual question for the community. I’m currently writing an adventure novel that’s set in a cyber-world, and I’ve incorporated the KDE mascots—Konqi, Katie, and Kandalf—as characters in my story.

I understand that KDE content, including its mascots, is typically licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. I want to make sure I’m properly attributing and crediting KDE in my novel to comply with this license.

Specific Wording for Attribution

What exact wording should I use for the attribution notice? For example, should it be:

  • “This work incorporates content from KDE, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.”
  • ** “Konqi, Katie, and Kandalf are characters derived from KDE content, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.”**
  • Or is there a specific, preferred phrasing that KDE recommends?

Any guidance you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

(I’m writing the novel in Japanese, but I can translate sections into English if you’d like to see them!)

Hi, xiffon_27.

As far as I know, there was no specific mention of the format in which the credits were displayed.

I would venture to say that the community wiki found this description (As you know, most of KDE’s mascots were designed by Tyson Tan):

Artworks by Tyson Tan

General specifications:

(Promo/Material/Mascots - KDE Community Wiki)

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I feel a little clearer.

Thanks for replying me, and have a nice day.
ありがとう

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That’s also how I understand it. The Konqi design by Tyson Tan is licenced under Creative Commons BY-SA, GFDL and LGPL. The page with the background story of Konqi, Katie, and Kandalf is also licenced under Creative Commons BY-SA.

CC BY-SA means that you would not only need to credit the author but also “ShareAlike” which means share derivate works under the same licence. I am not a lawyer, but the way I understand it that explicit usage of this licenced material in your novel requires that these usages of the material are also shared under CC BY-SA.

If my legal understanding is correct, this means that you not only need to write something like

in your credit section, but also make clear that the sections in which this material is used is also licenced under CC BY-SA. A practical example would go like this:

In your adventure novel there might be a section where the appearance of Konqi is described and you are basing this description on Tyson Tans work. It is also clear from the description of Konqi that he has character traits similar to what is described in Konqi - KDE Community Wiki. So in short, your character really is Konqi and not just a random dragon with the same name. Then, from my understanding, the sections of the novel in which this character acts also need to be licenced CC BY-SA. If these characters only appear on a few pages, this is easy. You simply write in your credit section something like:

The pages 23-24 in which these CC BY-SA licenced characters appear are also licenced under CC BY-SA.

This would mean that random people could freely put those pages on the internet for everyone to see.

If you planned to release your whole novel under CC BY-SA, there is obviously no problem either.

However, if Konqi, Katie, and Kandalf play major roles in your novel, e.g. because Konqi is the main character of the story, but you don’t want to release your whole novel under CC BY-SA, you should probably try to contact the original authors of the material you use for permission. Simply write Tyson Tan an eMail asking him if you have permission to use his design of Konqi as source material of your own original novel without the CC BY-SA licence restrictions on your textual use. If your Konqi has similar character traits as the one described in Konqi - KDE Community Wiki, you might also need to try to figure out who came up with those (I am sure some long-time KDE contributors would know) and if using such a character in your novel is allowed.

But that’s just how I understand it. Sorry that this might be a bit complicated. I am sure your usage of these characters is actually good for KDE, so if I had any say in this, I would give you any permission that I can, but strictly legally speaking CC BY-SA does not allow you to simply use the licenced material like it was your property to sell.

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How about this sir?

This work, “Penguin Coder,” is a non-commercial fanfiction inspired by the KDE project, GNOME®, Arch Linux™, Manjaro®, and other related intellectual property.

All operating system names, mascots, and associated trademarks belong to their respective copyright holders and are used unofficially without intent to infringe upon any existing rights or imply endorsement.

KDE content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). Please refer to the official KDE project website for more information: some URL

Heartfelt thanks go to the KDE community and to Tyson Tan.

(Note: All characters except Konqi, Katie and Kandalf are original)

That wording seems good, but as I tried to explain, simply putting a disclaimer does not free you from the “ShareAlike” part.

Realistically speaking, you will most definitely not have any legal trouble because of any fanfiction you write. People will be happy that you use KDE mascots as characters and not try to get in your way. However, your question was how to comply with the licence, so I am trying to make the conditions clear.

If you wanted to have Spider-Man as a character in your novel, you would not be allowed to do that because you don’t have a licence to use him. If you use Konqi in your novel, you can only fully legally use him if you follow the CC BY-SA licence.

The Attribution part is easily cleared by giving credit like in your last comment. Your project being non-commercial is irrelevant as far as the CC BY-SA licence is concerned.

The ShareAlike part is more difficult. As is mentioned on the licence page:

If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

So you yourself need to licence any contributions to the source material under the CC BY-SA licence. So if in your novel Konqi learns to puff smoke out of his ears, and everyone loves that thought, you need to allow people to use this idea/contribution to the source material under the CC BY-SA licence. If you write a funny dialog between Konqi and Katie which takes their unique personalities into account, that dialog would also need to be CC BY-SA as far as I know.

These kinds of rules also serve as a kind of protection of our mascots. If Microsoft wanted to make an advertisement in which Konqi is being beat down with a baseball bat, they would need to licence this advertisement as CC BY-SA and therefore give everyone else the right to make mocking videos using their advertisement to get back at Microsoft.

So I would suggest that you at least add a sentence to the credit section which says that your contributions to those characters are licenced CC BY-SA as demanded by the CC BY-SA licence. This way you are legally in the clear I think.

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I edited. sorry for many times…!

This work, “Penguin Coder,” is a non-commercial fanfiction inspired by the KDE project, GNOME™, Arch Linux™, Manjaro®, and other related intellectual property.

All operating system names, mascots, and associated trademarks belong to their respective copyright holders and are used unofficially without intent to infringe upon any existing rights or imply endorsement.

KDE content, including its mascots (Konqi, Katie, Kandalf), is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Any original contributions or new interpretations of these CC BY-SA licensed characters (such as their specific dialogue, actions, or new character traits within this novel) are also released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, as required by the ShareAlike clause.

Please refer to the official KDE project website for more information: some URL…

Heartfelt thanks go to the KDE community and to Tyson Tan.

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I think that works! Thanks!

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The problem has been solved.
*But hmm…
where should I post the novel…
Github… pixiv… or… here ?

Is such a thing allowed? If it was, who gonna read it!? *

Anyway, thank you everyone.

This is probably easier said than done, but maybe on an independent site - with promotion wherever else it might be relevant - so you could really control how it’s presented?

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