They're nice, but 25 is too small a sample to be used for a consistent theme.

Here are two sets I discovered recently. They are mostly 16x16 and 32x32 in size.

http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com Fugue - 3000 icons, CCA license

http://www.fatcow.com/free-icons Fatcow hosting - 1400 icons, CCA license

In addition to these two, the popular Silk icons set should not be forgotten:

http://www.famfamfam.com/archive/silk-icons-thats-your-lot/

It seems like all these icon sets are somewhat compatible, they have a similar style. I wouldn't be afraid to mix and match icons from these sets together, so that makes a pretty large collection of icons to use.

Here's another one of my favorites:

http://glyphish.com/ Glyphish - 200 icons for mobile apps, CCA

It's also worth noting here that you can pay $25 to get the set of 200 and another set of 80 in both bitmap and vector formats without the CCA license.

You can find both Fugue and Fatcow icons + many more here: http://www.iconfinder.com/browse/alphabetic

Wow I've been using the famfamfam Silk collection forever now but these are a welcome alternative.

Thanks for the link.

They're pretty, but also pretty useless. Besides the bug, cookies, coffee cup, and lock all of them require text in addition to the icon in order to make sense. Even the filetype icons include textual descriptions. They're also too complicated for use in most scenarios (especially the computer icons). Additionally, the package icons won't make sense to anyone who isn't a coder, and possibly not most people who don't have non-Windows experience.

Pretty and shiny, but for real work I'll stick with something like the Tango iconset (or hire out custom designs).

Hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't think they're very good looking at all

"The set may not be resold, sub-licensed or rented." and thus incompatible with all open source licenses.

Nice set, though I typically find what I need on http://www.iconfinder.com/

Can someone provide an example of someone actually using a coffee cup icon?

Caffeine (http://ubuntu-tweak.com/app/caffeine/), an app that inhibits power saving mode on Ubuntu, uses a coffee cup icon.

Not sure which one came first:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/...

I mean, one of those trendy paper cup icons.

Are those "free" as in "public domain" respectively "CC-BY(-SA)"? Or are they just "free" as in "freeware, please don't touch"?

From the readme.txt:

"You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. The set may not be offered for free downloading from websites other than SmashingMagazine.com. Please link to the article in which this freebie was released if you want to spread the word."

"Please link to the article in which this freebie was released if you want to spread the word."

According to the previous tight conditions, it's hard to believe that the author really wants those icons to be widespread.

So, free as in beer.

Free as in beer that you can only consume at the brewery.

Not sure what you would use these for.

Also, why is Python spelled out normally, but RUBY is spelled like an acronym? And where is Perl?

Nice, but I prefer my cookie icons to be chocolate chip.