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Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

Not exactly free.

IMPORTANT

All SF Symbols shall be considered to be system-provided images as defined in the Xcode and Apple SDKs license agreements and are subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein. You may not use SF Symbols — or glyphs that are substantially or confusingly similar — in your app icons, logos, or any other trademark-related use. Apple reserves the right to review and, in its sole discretion, require modification or discontinuance of use of any Symbol used in violation of the foregoing restrictions, and you agree to promptly comply with any such request.

Some symbols can’t be exported as templates for customization and can be used only to reference Apple technologies as documented below.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

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>or glyphs that are substantially or confusingly similar

In the image on the linked page, they use glyphs that are so common, some might consider them "standard". It's reprehensible that Apply might try and consider the "undo arrow" their own intellectual property. As a matter of fact, I don't see a single icon in that screenshot that I'd consider belonging to Apple. Those are all pretty much Font Awesome/IcoMoon staples.

You can probably assume they do not in fact consider "the undo arrow" to be Apple intellectual property.

Keep in mind that the legalese is intended for legal people to word-fight each other for lots of money. It generally turns this type of text in to vague yet usable terminology so you can defend or attack at will.

I'm certain that's the case. It is rather frustrating to see them even lay claim to such generic iconographs. But, if Disney can take public domain stories and lock them up for 100 years... who knows?

>It's reprehensible that Apply might try and consider the "undo arrow" their own intellectual property

Well, they don't. This is about this particular arrow(s) icon(s).

But, how is it different (confusingly or not) than the 1200 other examples on IcoMoon?

In various subtle ways. Or not. It's up for a court to decide, if it ever gets there.

IcoMoon also licenses its fonts: https://icomoon.io/#icons-lindua/license

> I don't see a single icon in that screenshot that I'd consider belonging to Apple.

Did you look specifically at the "Symbols For Use As-Is" list?

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

That list is made up entirely of logos for Apple products and features, and images of their products. Many of them are trademarks! It'd be hard to think of anything that is more clearly Apple's IP than this.

Maybe the title of this post should reflect that it's not exactly free.

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