

The OCAL project initially grew out of a project started by Christian Schaller (Uraeus), who, on October 26, 2003, issued a challenge on the Gnome Desktop website for Sodipodi users to create a collection of flags in SVG format. The Openclipart library (OCAL) was established in early 2004 by Jon Phillips and Bryce Harrington, who had worked together to develop the open-source vector graphics suites Sodipodi and its successor, Inkscape. The site's search feature was restored in May 2020. The website was brought down for several months by a reported DDoS attack in April 2019 access to the library via other means was still possible, including partial copies of the library that were hosted on several mirror sites.

The project hosts over 160,000 free graphics and has billed itself as "the largest community of artists making the best free original clipart for you to use for absolutely any reason". Openclipart, also called Open Clip Art Library, is an online media repository of free-content vector clip art. Unless noted, content is waived of all copyright and related or neighboring rights under this license.
