Replace Apple's emojis & other licencing issues

Lesik commented 9 years ago

Apple's emojis have the following copyright statement:

octocat, squirrel, shipit
Copyright (c) 2012 GitHub Inc. All rights reserved.

bowtie
Copyright (c) 2012 37signals, LLC. All rights reserved.

neckbeard
Copyright (c) 2012 Jamie Dihiansan. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

feelsgood, finnadie, goberserk, godmode, hurtrealbad, rage 1-4, suspect
Copyright (c) 2012 id Software. All rights reserved.

trollface
Copyright (c) 2012 whynne@deviantart. All rights reserved.

All other emoji images
Copyright (c) 2012 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

As you can see, only a small part of it is under CC. For the rest, the licence is unknown. It would be beneficial for our freedom to replace them with Google's Noto font, which is available under the Apache licence. (Besides, Apple's emojis are horribly ugly.)

Let's do something about this, for freedom's sake!

Allanitomwesh commented 9 years ago

Freedom is a always win in my book. DO IT

wp9015362 commented 9 years ago

Please do _not_ replace the Apple Emoji set with the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set.

Most people (or at least a lot), do not like the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set.

If you don't believe me, then maybe you should read the comments in the following two issues on the AOSP issue tracker:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=69755 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=73248

And maybe you should also read the comments in the following XDA-Developers forum thread:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2722892

Furthrmore, the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set looks way different than the Apple Emoji set, which can lead to the issue where Emojis can get lost in translation as described in the following article for example:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_5530638.html

A much better alternative for the Apple Emoji set is the open source "Emoji One" Emoji set, see:

http://emojione.com/ https://github.com/Ranks/emojione

As you can see on the following comparison page:

http://emoji.codes/family

the "Emoji One" Emoji set looks similar to the Apple Emoji set.

This is actually a design goal of Emoji One, see the following comment from an Emoji One developer:

https://github.com/Ranks/emojione/issues/68#issuecomment-93861096

The "Emoji One" Emoji set looks a heck of a lot better than the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set (IMHO) and it looks much more similar to the Apple set, which in turn would result in a much better interoperability with other Telegram clients, since most of them are using the Apple Emoji set.

And unlike the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set, the "Emoji One" Emoji set even comes with Unicode 7.0 Emojis (even including middle finger Emoji).

So, please, _if_ you replace the Emoji set, then please use the "Emoji One" Emoji set.

Please do _not_ use the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set.

Regards

Lesik commented 9 years ago

Most people (or at least a lot), do not like the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set.

I don't think that is true. There are many issues at the official client's Github regarding the switch to Google Noto. Pretty much everybody in the issues agrees that Google Noto looks better.

The "Emoji One" Emoji set looks a heck of a lot better than the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set [...].

They look pretty similar to me. The only difference I see at first glance is that Noto has weird yellow bubbles instead of "real" people. That is not a bad thing though, Noto is compliant to Unicode guidelines: "Unicode suggests that characters with no specific mention of gender or race should be gender-neutral where possible, however the result of this on Android is these 'blob' characters." [Source]

[Furthermore], the Google "Noto Color Emoji" Emoji set [...] can lead to [issues] [...].

So I'm more for Google's Noto than Eomji One, however what I care about is freedom. If to achieve freedom I have to sacrifice beauty, I choose freedom. So if implementing Google's Noto is not possible due to technical issues, at least make it Emoji One please @dev.

wp9015362 commented 9 years ago

@Lesik wrote:

There are many issues at the official client's Github regarding the switch to Google Noto. Pretty much everybody in the issues agrees that Google Noto looks better.

In the issues you are referring to, people basically were not really asking to switch to the Google Noto Color Emoji.

What they were asking for was to use the native system Emojis.

Because Telegram is using a built-in Emoji drawer (independent of the IME keyboard being used) and is using it's own built-in Emoji set, which consists of JPEGs, see:

https://github.com/slp/Telegram-FOSS/tree/master/TMessagesProj/src/main/assets/emoji

and which overwrite the native system Emojis.

But the native system Emojis on Android devices are not always the Google Noto Color Emojis.

Samsung has it's own Emoji set, HTC has it's own Emoji set, LG has it's own Emoji set and so on... (see http://emoji.codes/family for a comparision for example).

So people were asking to simply use the native system Emojis instead of overwriting them with a built-in set.

But I think that would be an extremely bad decision, because then every Telegram user would use and see different Emojis, which can lead to the issue were Emojis can get lost in translation as described in the following article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_5530638.html

I think Emojis should be consistent across all clients and across all platforms. If I send someone a message with Emojis in it, I wanna be sure that he/she sees the very same Emojis that I am seeing.

If the clients would suddenly start to use different Emojis or would use the native system Emojis, that would really suck IMHO, since the Emojis could get lost in translation easily,

The Apple set simply is the de-facto standard for Emojis.

Many popular apps are using it across all devices/clients/platforms, to make for a consistent Emoji experience.

So, if it is not necessary, then I think the Emojis should not be changed.

But if it is really necessary, then @slp should use the open source Emoji One set IMHO, since it is the one that looks similar to the Apple set.

Another open source Emoji set which looks similar to the Apple set is the Twitter "Twemoji" Emoji set:

https://github.com/twitter/twemoji

But judging from the activity in the GitHub repository, it seems like it's currently no longer actively being maintained or nobody cares about it.

Also I think the Emoji One set looks better than the Twemoji set.

Anyway, the Emoji One or the Twemoji set would be the only alternatives for the Apple set.

The Google Noto Color Emoji set is an absolute no-go.

@Lesik wrote:

So if implementing Google's Noto is not possible due to technical issues, at least make it Emoji One please

There is no technical issue.

The issue would be that the Google Noto Color Emoji set looks way different than the Apple Emoji set, which can easily lead to the issue were Emojis can get lost in translation between different clients, as described in the following article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_5530638.html

Therefore the Google Noto Color Emoji set is a no-go IMHO.

The only alternatives for the Apple set would be the open source Emoji One set or the open source Twemoji set, since those look way more similar to the Apple set.

And from those two, the Emoji One set would definitely be favorable, since it looks better than the Twemoji set, looks even more similar to the Apple set than the Twemoji set, has more Emojis than the Twemoji set and is actively being maintained by it's developers.

Regards

wp9015362 commented 9 years ago

PS:

I might have to rectify my statement about Emoji One looking the most similar to the Apple set...

Because on the welcome page on http://emojione.com/ , Emoji One is now advertising an entirely new Emoji set ("The 2016 Collection") due to be released in November 2015 which seems to look rather different now...

Well, let's see what they have to say about it:

https://github.com/Ranks/emojione/issues/126

Regards

slp commented 9 years ago

I wasn't aware of this issue, but definitely this is something worth fixing. Thanks for raising it.

I have no personal preference for the emoji set, both look good to me. Anyway, as a first step, I'm going to look for a way of introducing this change without increasing the maintenance costs (as you know Telegram-FOSS merges the changes from Telegram each time the later makes a release).

And probably, I'll wait until the next official release from upstream to apply this change.

wp9015362 commented 9 years ago

@slp wrote:

Anyway, as a first step, I'm going to look for a way of introducing this change without increasing the maintenance costs

The easiest thing would probably be to simply use the native system Emojis instead. There is already a pull request which kinda deals with this, see:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/pull/625

And several other users were about to submit similar pull requests as well, see:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/829 https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/222

But please don't do that.

Using the native system Emojis would mean:

Telegram FOSS users with Samsung devices would see Samsung Emojis
Telegram FOSS users with HTC devices would see HTC Emojis
Telegram FOSS users with LG devices would see LG Emojis
Telegram FOSS users with Nexus/AOSP devices would see Google Emojis
Telegram FOSS users with devices running Android versions older than 4.4 KitKat would see no color Emojis at all
Regular Telegram users would see the built-in Apple Emojis on all devices

That would be a mess, as described in the following article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_5530638.html

It would just suck.

Therefore, please don't do it.

Instead, if you really need to replace the Apple Emojis (which would be sad), then please replace the Apple JPEG Emojis:

https://github.com/slp/Telegram-FOSS/tree/master/TMessagesProj/src/main/assets/emoji

with Emoji One. Please do not use the Google Noto Color Emojis, since they simply look too different compared to the Apple Emojis.

And if you really need to replace them, it would be nice if you could use PNG instead of JPEG, as requested in the following issue over there:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/914

Regards

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

The Apple emojis absolutely need to go purely on the basis of licensing. Regardless how many apps may use them, this emoji set is copyrighted and not under any license that allows its 3rd-party use. It is disingenuous to have a GPL-licensed FOSS app which has copyrighted unlicensed material snuck into it.

Using native emojis should be an option, but not default, because vendors have wildly different representations of emojis, and they are far from consistent. Inconsistency notwithstanding, however, there are certainly users who prefer their native options.

Emoji One seems a good candidate for a replacement, because it is similar in aesthetic to the Apple emojis, but is under an CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. My two cents are that it's best to choose a set similar to what is already in use, simply because the existing user base will be more familiar with it. It will be less of a sharp change.

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@vsimonian wrote:

Using native emojis should be an option, but not default, because vendors have wildly different representations of emojis, and they are far from consistent. Inconsistency notwithstanding, however, there are certainly users who prefer their native options.

No, please, there should not be an option to allow to switch to native system Emojis.

If I send an Emoji to someone, then I want to be sure that he/she sees the same Emojis that I see.

If he/she would have the option to use different Emojis, I could no longer be sure about that.

So, I think such an option should definitely not be implemented, since it would increase the risk of the Emojis getting lost in translation as described in the following artcle:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/emoji-meaning_n_5530638.html

And that would just suck.

@vsimonian wrote:

Emoji One seems a good candidate for a replacement, because it is similar in aesthetic to the Apple emojis, but is under an CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. My two cents are that it's best to choose a set similar to what is already in use, simply because the existing user base will be more familiar with it. It will be less of a sharp change.

As already mentioned, I agree, but I'd like to repeat:

Emoji One is currently working on a brand new Emoji set, "The 2016 Collection", scheduled for a release in November 2015, which then will probably also be Unicode 8.0 compatible.

They already have some preview images for "The 2016 Collection" on their homepage and on their Instagram account, see:

http://emojione.com/ http://emojione.com/images/carousel_slide8.png https://instagram.com/emojione/

As you can see, the new Emoji One set will no longer look like the Apple set.

But on the Telegram for Android issue tracker, I have now posted a request to @DrKLO (Telegram for Android), @zhukov (Webogram) and @telegramdesktop (Telegram Desktop) and have asked them if they could all replace the Apple set with the new Emoji One set.

That way it wouldn't really matter if the the Apple set looks different, at least not between those three clients.

Since Telegram for iOS is using Apple Emojis and Telegram for Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile is using Microsoft Emojis, it would be nice if the Telegram for iOS developers and the Telegram for Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile developers would also switch to the new Emoji One set.

But even if only the Telegram for Android, Webogram and Telegram Desktop developers would do it, it would already be nice.

Regards

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

PS:

Here the link to the request on the Telegram for Android issue tracker:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/222#issuecomment-141660534

Regards

Lesik commented 8 years ago

I get your point, but should it really be Telegram who's fixing the vendor's mistakes? It's how LG/Samsung/HTC make their phones, with inconsistent. Their choice was to f*ck up the system, why should Telegram take care of this and not them?

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@Lesik wrote:

Their choice was to f*ck up the system, why should Telegram take care of this and not them?

Because the vendors probably won't...

Also, it's not like Telegram is the only messenger who uses built-in Emojis to make for a consistent Emoji experience across platforms/devices.

WhatsApp, Threema and TextSecure for example are also using Apple Emojis built-in, just like Telegram is doing it at the moment...

By the way, there is a way and even an app to change the native system Emojis, see:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2722892

But it requres root and fiddling around with system files, which sucks.

And Google doesn't really seem to care about this issue.

There have been several requests for an option in Android to be able to switch out the native system Emojis without having to have root access and without needing to manually fiddle around with system files, see for example the following feature request on the AOSP issue tracker:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=69755

As you can see, Google doesn't really seem to care.

And it looks like the upcoming Android 6.0 Marshmallow won't have such an option either...

Regards

eevee commented 8 years ago

Please just respect my device's font instead of assuming you know better. Human communication is not going to crumble because you see a slightly different smiley face than I do.

Lesik commented 8 years ago

I'm sorry, wp9015362 (how do you remember your username?), but I agree with eevee. In my opinion, WhatsApp, Threema and TextSecure are bad examples which we should not follow. They do it wrong.

I can see why Google doesn't care about this issue: It took them six years to fix something as important as the permissions problem (flashlight apps wants to read my contacts? Sure thing!), so such an insignificant issue as inconsistent smileys on different devices doesn't receive too much attention. Even if they did address it, how would they solve it? Disallow vendors to change the smileys? AOSP is under the Apache licence. It's not in their power.

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@eevee wrote:

Human communication is not going to crumble because you see a slightly different smiley face than I do.

Wrong.

Also, as already mentioned, it's not just about seeing different Emojis.

It's also about not being able to see Emojis at all.

Android still does not support Unicode 7.0 / 8.0 Emojis. But iOS and Windows 10 does. So if Telegram for Android would use native system Emojis and an iOS or Windows 10 Telegram user sends an Unicode 7.0 or 8.0 Emoji to a Telegram for Android user, then the Telegram for Android user will not be able to see it.

With Emojis being built into Telegram, this issue could be solved by including the Unicode 7.0 / 8.0 Emojis.

To be fair though, that hasn't happened yet. I have addressed this issue to @DrKLO over there:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/986

Unfortunately he hasn't updated the built in set yet, but once he will, the issue would be solved.

Using native system Emojis would not allow to fix that.

@Lesik wrote:

Even if they did address it, how would they solve it? Disallow vendors to change the smileys?

They could at least add an option to Android to let the user change the native system Emojis, as requested over there:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=69755

That way a Samsung user would not have to use Samsung Emojis if he doesn't want to. LG users would not have to use LG Emojis if they don't want. HTC users would not have to use HTC Emojis if they don't want to. Nexus/AOSP users would not have to use Google Emojis if they don't want to. And so on...

Regards

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

This conversation is starting to go in circles (especially if you take into account the context of this discussion having taken place elsewhere numerous times [and by that I refer to the other repos]), but it looks like the majority of everyone here would be okay with:

Use Emoji One as an emoji set
We can nitpick for days, but the Apple emojis are simply not an option because their use isn't legal. This seems to be the best compromise.
Allow users to use their native emoji set
FOSS is all about choice, not controlling communication down to a tee. Free as in beer means I should be able to choose what I see.

I think we should just vote on whether or not we want these implemented, a +1 or -1 for either option. If not the ones above, then some others that we choose to vote on. Otherwise, this could go on for perpetuity.

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@vsimonian wrote:

Use Emoji One as an emoji set

+1 :+1:

Yes, that would be nice.

Ideally @DrKLO 's Telegram for Android, @zhukov 's Webogram and @telegramdesktop 's Telegram Desktop should do the same then, so that they would all use the Emoji One set.

@vsimonian wrote:

Allow users to use their native emoji set

-1 :-1:

No, that would be bad. Please don't do it.

@vsimonian :

So, where's your vote?

Regards

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

@wp9015362 Ah, I forgot. Good catch.

+1 - Use Emoji One as an emoji set +1 - Allow users to use their native emoji set

Bubu commented 8 years ago

+ 1 to native emojis

1 Emoji One, or some other replacement for the non-free emoticons. I don't really care.

aphirst commented 8 years ago

For what it's worth, I agree that using the native Emoji set is probably a bad idea. We need to ensure that there's a "standard" look-and-feel across all clients and platforms otherwise things will unavoidably (and unacceptably) get lost-in-translation.

+1 :+1: Emoji One or equivalent -1 :-1: Native

frazzmark commented 8 years ago

+1 :+1: Emoji One +1 :+1: Allow users to choose, that would be fantastic. In case the second one is too complicated, I'd vote the first.

Allanitomwesh commented 8 years ago

+1 to anything but copyrighted shit +1 to Emoji One as a good complete set EDIT Emoji One has all the country flags too,including oft neglected african countries.

0nse commented 8 years ago

+1 :+1: for Emoji One or something else with a copyleft licence. 0 :zero: for an option to use built-in emojis as there are pros and cons to this decision.

eevee commented 8 years ago

+1 to not ripping off Apple +1 to native

0nse commented 8 years ago

just a side note; TextSecure now allows the use of system emojis again: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/commit/e077cc658122251b1a20508841e94d2e02c00901

Lesik commented 8 years ago

+1 emoji one +1 native

stefan-niedermann commented 8 years ago

+1 emoji one

1 native (because this should be done in the original app. we all should be happy, @slp merges this app every time. i think its much less work to only replace some image files than merging java code.)

Zelgadis87 commented 8 years ago

-1 for Emoji One, as this would be yet another application that behaves differently than any other application on a given device, creating a fragmented and inconsistent experience with the rest of the system. It would also be one of the very few app to use this set, making the matter even worse.

+1 for native, as every platform has its set of guidelines and expected interfaces that an application wanting to live in that ecosystem should strive to adhere to. It's the reason why Telegram has one (or more) native app for each platform, instead of a single standard interface for every platform. Since emojis are part of the look and feel of a system, they too, like the rest of the interface, should respect the guidelines of the system where they are used.

Let's also not forget that emojis are defined in a standard, so wildly mismatching representations (which seems to be the major reason why users are voting no on this issue) are a problem that the vendor themselves should fix, not the single applications.

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

Current tally, as of this comment:

Issue	For	Against	Undecided
Use Emoji One as an emoji set	10	1	0
Allow users to use their native emoji set	6	3	2

Zelgadis87 commented 8 years ago

@vsimonian Sorry, I think you got my vote reversed :) Thanks

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

@Zelgadis87 Whoops, good catch! Fixed. :)

slp commented 8 years ago

I've just took a look at the technical side of this issue. I'd like to share my conclusions with you:

Telegam can control the way emojis are displayed on messages, but can't do anything about how they are shown on the on-screen keyboard. This is not the main issue, but I think is worth mentioning.
Supporting native emojis is, literally, just a matter of commenting two lines of code.
Adding support for Emoji One (or any other emoji set) requires a significant amount of work (my estimation is 4-8 hours), as the sprite sheet changes in both disposition and resolution, so new code would be needed to properly choose the image and adjust it to the display density.

So here's the deal. Mainline has just published version 3.2.0 in the Play Store. If, by the time DrKLO's repo is updated with 3.2.0 changes, I've already finished the changes for implementing Emoji One support, Telegram-FOSS v3.2.0 will support both Emoji One and native emojis, defaulting to the first one (I will also send a pull request to mainline). If that's not the case, it will only support native emojis, and support for Emoji One will be added later.

In either case, newer versions of Telegram-FOSS will NOT include the assets identified with dubious copyright/licenses.

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

@slp :tada: :+1:

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@slp :

Thanks for using Emoji One and thanks for going to submit a pull request to @DrKLO as well.

Much appreciated.

Some questions though:

Are you going to implement all Emojis from Emoji One?

Because Emoji One has the new Unicode 7.0 Emojis (including middle finger Emoji and so on).

Currently Telegram is not using Unicode 7.0 Emojis, see:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/986

So it would be nice if you would not just replace the existing Emojis with Emoji One Emojis, but also would add all the other Emojis from Emoji One.

Also:

Are you going to use PNG instead of JPEG as requested over there:

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/914

?

Regards

uniquePWD commented 8 years ago

Isn't switching out one spritesheet for another just compounding the problem. Wouldn't it be smart to make the transition to a font for platforms that support it?

Jamesits commented 8 years ago

Supporting native emojis is, literally, not a matter of commenting two lines of code. Don't forget the emoji keyboard in the app.

BTW, jist for reference, I've already tried this at https://github.com/Jamesits/Moegram and is fully working.

indrora commented 8 years ago

Hey guys so you know, DrKLO closed the bug tracker. Dead. Done. Boom.

adalinesimonian commented 8 years ago

@indrora I've sent Pavel Durov an e-mail, hoping for a response.

indrora commented 8 years ago

I attempted to email Telegram on this issue. It appears their system may have dumped my email because 'legal@telegram.org' does not exist.

The full text follows:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Hey there telegram!

I'm a developer, but also a user of the service and I've got a few
concerns.

First, how much longer until Telegram sets up a proper GitHub
organization (or, barring GitHub, an organization in GitLab) so that
there's one centralized place for the official Telegram code? Not only
does that look a thousand or so times more professional, it means that
there's less chance of people abusing the power they've been given,
such as in the case of Telegram for Android.

Which brings me to my second point: the Telegram for Android, Webogram
and Telegram Desktop apps are technically not free software.

All politics about emoji preferences aside, the iOS/Apple Emoji are not
licensed under a free license, which means that anything licensed under
the GNU GPL (which Telegram for Android is, as is Webogram and friends)
can't legally use the iOS/Apple Emoji without being considered *non
free* software.

Some people like using the emoji from their platform. For example, I
quite enjoy the emoji that are available on my platform - android - and
that others, such as Windows Phone users would rather see their
platform's emoji.

On top of that, I've come to find out that the maintainer of Telegram
for Android is... not the person I would have spearheading my leading
application. This specific topic, of emoji choice, was brought up in a
GitHub ticket, #222 - and deliberated, including someone who included a
simple option to use different skins.

It was closed and the issue tracker destroyed by DrKLO. I am happy to
provide an archive of the GitHub's email correspondence, but it ended
with DrKLO fundamentally going "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,
this is my project go fuck yourself."

Well, he ended the ticket with "We are pirates."

both Google and Bing have reasonable archives of the ticket:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HJP2MNW1cuwJ:https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/issues/222+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FDrKLO%2FTelegram%2Fissues%2F222&d=4617297485238623&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=7qKmCqVaZkcztC_jJicJCFjCyG27h1_h

They are unfortunately not complete.

On top of that, this isn't the first time Telegram for Android has had
to be listed as Non-free: It was listed as nonfree by F-Droid over
HockeySDK.

I'd really rather not have the Apple or anyone else who feels the
need to come along and beat people up over something frankly as stupid
as *emoji* take down telegram.

(oh wait, DrKLO already did that and made the rest of us feel very,
very unpleasant: I was going to actively work on the project, submit a
few patches here and there? I'm not and I never plan to after my
interactions with DrKLO)

I am not a lawyer, but it does look as though the use of the apple
emoji in Telegram is against Apple's stated rules:

http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html

> Unauthorized Use of Apple Trademarks
>
> 2. Apple Logo and Apple-owned Graphic Symbols: You may not use the
> Apple Logo or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol, logo, or icon on
> or in connection with web sites, products, packaging, manuals,
> promotional/advertising materials, or for any other purpose except
> pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple, such as
> a reseller agreement.

the Apple Emoji are, by definition, Apple owned graphic symbols.

/s/, a concerned developer

- --
Morgan Gangwere <morgan.gangwere@gmail.com>
www: http://zaibatsutel.net/
dev: http://papertape.zaibatsutel.net/
pgp: https://keybase.io/indrora/key.asc

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wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@indrora wrote:

Hey guys so you know, DrKLO closed the bug tracker. Dead. Done. Boom.

WTF...

@durov & @DrKLO :

Why did that happen?

Regards

0nse commented 8 years ago

It appears their system may have dumped my email because 'legal@telegram.org' does not exist. — @indrora

Not a big surprise is it? To this day, Telegram LLP, claiming to be Berlin-based, have never had an imprint on their page to which they are legally bound to by German law at the latest when they add "nonessential paid options". I assume, they do not want you to be able to contact them in a way that they would be obliged to respond.

Lesik commented 8 years ago

Not responding to Github issues because one doesn't have enough time is understandable.

Completely closing all Github issues and thus muting all user feedback is not understandable. Especially since DrKLO gets paid for that. I don't think DrKLO is an appropriate developer for a project like Telegram.

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@Lesik wrote:

I don't think DrKLO is an appropriate developer for a project like Telegram.

Let's be fair though, Telegram for Android is a very nice piece of software, so @DrKLO makes a good job otherwise.

@indrora wrote:

I attempted to email Telegram on this issue. It appears their system may have dumped my email because 'legal@telegram.org' does not exist.

Where do they actually claim that legal@ would exist?

Maybe you should rather have a look at:

https://telegram.org/faq#q-there-39s-illegal-content-on-telegram-how-do-i-take-it-down

where it says one should use abuse@ :wink:.

Regards

Lesik commented 8 years ago

@wp9015362 wrote:

Let's be fair though, Telegram for Android is a very nice piece of software, so @DrKLO makes a good job otherwise.

I agree, it's a nice piece of software, but disabling Github issues is not OK.

indrora commented 8 years ago

@0nse -> I made sure to also cc abuse@ and info@ but mailers are bad.

@wp9015362 -> It's a common idiom among companies that a legal@ local would exist such that.. I don't know, queries about legal issues would be directed at it. This is fairly common in US companies at least (Google, Apple, Facebook, etc).

As of this moment, I've discovered that I have a cache of it on my phone. I'll screenshot the conversation as much as I can and archive it somewhere safe.

edit: Here you go: http://imgur.com/a/Pd9uG

indrora commented 8 years ago

Technical details on replacing the iOS emojis with EmojiOne:

Telegram's current replacer uses a set of offsets agreed upon in EmojiSpriteMaker.whatever -- A huge chunk of Objective-C code that can only be run on OSX. This is bad.
My proposed solution (and someone please call me out for smoking the bad dope here) involves a set of 1x256 32x32 sprite sheets that cover the spectrum.
in emojiOne, there's a regex within the PHP library that defines the spectrum. I don't know if it falls back gracefully, but the best solution is to simply have a fallback image in those cases.

Worst case, we bump the size of the app +5M (to 10M of pngs) and ship a bunch of 64x64 emoji. Smashing them down to 32x32 produces 5M of PNGs. Running OptiPNG over everything trims some fat off.

Alternately, we do the Bad Thing:tm: and build something akin to what DrKLO built, except where the generator spits out something like 'emoji.dat' with the offsets for each of the emoji. This does have one distinct advantage though: Tools like OptiPNG and pngcrush can really smash those down small.

Unfortunately, WebP isn't a good option, since Android 4.2.1+ is required for transparency.

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@indrora wrote:

As of this moment, I've discovered that I have a cache of it on my phone. I'll screenshot the conversation as much as I can and archive it somewhere safe.

edit: Here you go: http://imgur.com/a/Pd9uG

LOL, WTF...

Thanks for digging this up, hadn't had the chance to read it before the issue tracker was disabled.

@DrKLO wrote:

[...] All our apps has apple Emoji, so I don't see reason to change this. [... ] Telegram for Android is not the onlies our client and I will not bring inconsistency to this project. [...]

@DrKLO , how is that an argument? Then why don't you just speak to @zhukov and @telegramdesktop and ask them to also use Emoji One in Webogram and Telegram Desktop?

That should be easy for you?

If Telegram for Android, Webogram and Telegram Deskop all would be using Emoji One that would be a good start.

Yes, I realize that even then Telegram for iOS and Telegram for Mac OS X would still use Apple Emojis and that Telegram for Windows Phone/Windows Mobile would still use Microsoft Emojis, but maybe they could switch to Emoji One as well.

By the way, I have asked the Emoji One developers to overthink the design of their upcoming Emoji One 2.0 (A.K.A. "The 2016 Collection") Emoji faces once again, and look how nice they are looking now, see:

https://github.com/Ranks/emojione/issues/128#issuecomment-142392710 https://github.com/Ranks/emojione/issues/127#issuecomment-142391124 https://instagram.com/emojione/

It would be nice if you would reopen the issue tracker again.

And it would be nice if Telegram would be using the upcoming Emoji One 2.0 (A.K.A. "The 2016 Collection") Emoji set (scheduled to be released in November 2015).

That being said:

@indrora wrote:

Technical details on replacing the iOS emojis with EmojiOne:

I think it would make sense to wait until November until Emoji One 2.0 (A.K.A. "The 2016 Collection") has been released before implementing Emoji One into Telegram.

It's a brand new set (see above). So if you are implementing Emoji One 1.5 now and 2.0 will be released in one or two months, then you would need to update the entire set again. So, I'd say it would make more sense to wait for 2.0 to come out.

But if it is no problem for you to integrate 1.5 first and then update to 2.0, that would be nice as well of course.

Regards

indrora commented 8 years ago

@wp9015362 -> That's more of an argument for building a generator that's easy to extend!

wp9015362 commented 8 years ago

@indrora wrote:

That's more of an argument for building a generator that's easy to extend!

I see.

By the way, one thing that hasn't been mentioned by you yet is, that the built-in Emoji keyboard of Telegram for Android also is still missing the skin tone modifier feature.

WhatsApp for Android has it now, see:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/06/30/live-long-and-prosper-whatsapp-adds-skin-tone-emojis-and-spock-vulcan-salute-on-android/

Telegram-FOSS/Telegram for Android should also get it, because the new Emoji One 2.0 set probably will have the diversity Emojis.

I guess @DrKLO will implement that anyway, since he said that he is planning to update the Emoji set to the new iOS 9.1 release anyway, but who knows what's really going to happen from now on, now that even the issue tracker has been disabled...

So, just saying...

Regards

slp commented 8 years ago

@Jamesits Yup, you're right, I've adopted your approach for EmojiView: https://github.com/slp/Telegram-FOSS/commit/03771b0cb2a4f18486c66887466551d424e4c9c0

Telegram-FOSS-Team / Telegram-FOSS

Replace Apple's emojis & other licencing issues #35