Under what license may I take and use screenshots of LibreOffice?

Silv · December 8, 2019, 1:48am

I have posted this question originally on StackExchange Open Source yesterday (it is under this link). If you want to answer it, I will be glad if you make it either here or there; it does not matter for me, do as you would like. I will post the question in very similar form because I do not feel that changing it would better clarify my needs.

Recently, I have been considering making some screenshots of LibreOffice’s applications and putting them on my blog (just as graphical examples for the text). But then, I started to think about what rights and obligations – in general, what licenses – are appropriate to such use of LibreOffice. For example, whether I am required to include any particular license notices.

I mean screenshots both of whole windows / dialog boxes, and of any part of them.

What I have found so far

I have found the following threads related to my question:

However, none of them answers my question as I do not see in neither of them any mentions about screenshots from the legal point of view.

Moreover, I have searched for any such mentions in the license that LibreOffice is made available under (Mozilla Public License Version 2.0), but found nothing.

I have found the following guide for legally using screenshots of Microsoft products. I am putting it here because maybe it will better show what I am about. I imagine whether there would be at least a statement like this on the internet, but considering LibreOffice (or some broader group of software that LibreOffice explicitly states it is a part of).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/permissions/default.aspx (navigate to the section “Screenshots”)

I realize that it may not make any sense speaking about licensing in such a case; if so, I would also like to see any source that states it explicitly.

mikekaganski · December 8, 2019, 7:22am

For legal questions, please email legal@documentfoundation.org

Silv · December 8, 2019, 12:17pm

@MikeKaganski, thank you for suggestion. I will consider. Nonetheless, I still wonder whether there is a publicly accessible statement/license.

ProLogic · December 8, 2019, 4:41pm

There is a good FAQ made by the Mozilla Foundation MPL 2.0 FAQ — Mozilla
i just read it transversally but there are also some interesting links in some answers, Q18 might give you a good clue about screenshot (they speak about webpage),

Silv · December 8, 2019, 9:46pm

@ProLogic, thank you for the link. I have not seen it before. I have read the whole FAQ, but did not find anything related to screenshots. In particular, in the question 18 there are mentioned “non-software works (…) that that are written primarily for use in MPL-licensed software”; in my opinion that does not relate to such works like screenshots – they are not created for use in software. — But beside my question, this FAQ seems to be a great source, explaining some other issues that was not clear to me before. I will bookmark it.