Unicode figures for digital text communications have been standardized for a while, but the images used along with it have not, leading to a situation where many developers were using emoticon images without proper permissions. Rather than fighting a shaky legal landscape, Twitter decided to make their own HTML and graphic standards for Unicode graphics named Emoji. The company partnered with Automattic, the makers of WordPress, and have built an HTML graphic system that is open source, and free to be used by anyone. This endeavor has been an ideal example of open source done right, and provides some valuable lessons for anyone working in open source.
