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Quantum Mechanics

Licensing

Licensing is part of asset provenance. A figure can be mathematically correct and still be unusable if its source, permissions, or attribution are unclear.

This page is an editorial guide, not legal advice. When in doubt, use original generated assets, public-domain sources with documented provenance, or openly licensed sources whose terms are compatible with reuse.

Preferred Asset Sources

Section titled “Preferred Asset Sources”

Preferred asset types are:

  • original TikZ diagrams committed with source,
  • notebook-generated plots committed with source notebook and validation,
  • original data visualizations generated from documented data,
  • public-domain historical materials with provenance,
  • openly licensed external materials only when attribution and adaptation terms are compatible.

Avoid copied textbook figures, unlicensed images from the web, and screenshots whose terms are unclear.

License Record

Section titled “License Record”

Every reused or generated asset should record:

  • creator or source,
  • license or rights status,
  • attribution text if required,
  • modifications made,
  • source URL or DOI when applicable,
  • access date for mutable web sources,
  • path of local derivative asset,
  • page where it appears.

For code and data files, prefer SPDX identifiers when appropriate.

Creative Commons Sources

Section titled “Creative Commons Sources”

Creative Commons licenses can be useful, but their terms differ. Record the exact license, such as CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0, not only “Creative Commons.”

Be especially careful with:

  • NC restrictions, which limit commercial use,
  • ND restrictions, which limit derivatives,
  • SA requirements, which can affect derivative licensing,
  • attribution requirements,
  • whether a figure has been cropped, recolored, translated, or otherwise adapted.

Public Domain

Section titled “Public Domain”

Public-domain claims should be documented. For historical materials, identify why the material is public domain and cite the source. A museum page, archive page, or government repository can be useful, but the local page should still record the status.

Do not assume that an old-looking image is public domain.

Generated Assets

Section titled “Generated Assets”

For original diagrams and plots, the source file is the provenance record. Keep source files in the matching source directory:

public/figures-src/<volume>/<figure-name>.tex

Generated SVGs should live under:

public/figures/<volume>/<figure-name>.svg

Do not commit LaTeX auxiliary files or untracked intermediate outputs.

Attribution in Captions

Section titled “Attribution in Captions”

Most original generated diagrams do not need verbose attribution in the caption. Reused or adapted external assets should include attribution in the caption or nearby text according to the license.

Attribution should not obscure the physics. Keep it precise and compact.

Section titled “Cross-Links”

References

Section titled “References”