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yet another licenseyet another licensePosted Jan 27, 2006 9:56 UTC (Fri) by yosch (guest, #4675)In reply to: yet another license by stevenj Parent article: Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)
Well... ever wondered why there are so few high-quality modifiable and redistributable fonts available? One of the big reasons is that most font designers really hate finding their work sold through cheap font cd collections.
Your friendly comment focuses on one small restriction designed to alleviate that problem while still allowing wide packaging and distribution, but you seem to be ignoring all that the license will now enable for worldwide collaborative typography. This area is not as simple as you think.
Please read the FAQ a bit more closely: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL-FAQ_web.
The issues of embedding and derivative works are much more important and many think that the OFL is providing a much nicer legal framework for that.
This is not yet another license but a license that was much needed to bring better non-restricted font support to the free desktop. The Bitstream Vera licensing model certainly helped but more needed to be done in that crucial area, there were still *many* grey areas.
The OFL is a well-researched licensing model which has been reviewed, commented and refined with the FLOSS community. See http://scripts.sil.org/OFL_feedback
We think it caters to the needs of font designers while complying with the free software values and methodologies. See this for more details: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL#6c6c80bc
Note also how the license is neutral and not project-specific like most other font licenses out there so that it can be easily reused by any designer or foundry. How's that for fighting license proliferation?
The OFL has received good support from various key members of the commmunity:
The FSF actually thinks the license is a free software license for fonts:
George Williams, the author and maintainer of Fontforge recommends the license:
Raph Levien contemplates using the OFL for his Inconsolata project:
Stepan Roh from the Dejavu project (the main Vera derivative) likes the license:
Various people from GNOME, OpenOffice.org and Debian also see this license as useful.
Check out the OFL-discuss archives for more:
So, it is a fairly solid license, various designers are going to use it for upcoming font releases and we are in contact with the maintainers of the major distros for inclusion in main but, if you have any good suggestions for future refinements, free free to post them on the ofl-discuss list.
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yet another license Posted Jan 27, 2006 17:31 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] One of the big reasons is that most font designers really hate finding their work sold through cheap font cd collections. And the SIL license does absolutely nothing to prevent that. As I pointed out, you can obey the letter of the license by bundling any trivial program with your font cd. (Indeed, if the license succeeded in prohibiting cheap font cds, it wouldn't qualify as FLOSS.) I have no doubt that the intentions of the license authors were good, but it was obviously written without the advice of people experienced in FLOSS licensing, because it falls into errors that have been made time and time again by well-meaning people who thought they could dash off a new license. (Yes, I know the FAQ claims otherwise, but the proof is in the pudding.) As another example, it clearly tries to be a copyleft (by requiring that derived works be distributed under the same license), but copyleft licenses are notoriously subtle to get right (to avoid loopholes and unintended consequences) and I don't think this one succeeds. There are lots of places that one can go for advice on this — the FSF, OSI, and even the debian-legal mailing list. I strongly urge that the SIL authors to take advantage of the available expertise in order to revise or replace the license.
did you actually *read* the answer? Posted Jan 27, 2006 20:29 UTC (Fri) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] especially bottom half
yes, I read it, and the "support" for OFL is not nearly as strong as is claimed Posted Jan 27, 2006 21:19 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Just because the FSF says it is a free-software license (something I do not contest) doesn't mean it is a well-crafted license. The FSF considers lots of licenses "free" that they don't particularly recommend. I looked on the OFL-discuss list, and I don't see any representative of a group experienced with FLOSS licensing saying that the OFL is particularly a good idea. I do see Jim Gettys posting expressing concern about "license proliferation" and suggesting that they should get input from Eben Moglen of the FSF. I see Gervase Markham of Mozilla.org (who is also not a lawyer) also making some substantial criticisms of the license and also expressing concern about license proliferation. The FontForge link is someone pointing it out as an example of a license designed for fonts, with no particular analysis of whether it is a well-crafted license or not. Besides, random developers are notoriously bad at evaluating licenses...that's one of the reasons why there are so many poorly-crafted ones floating around (cough, Artistic license, cough). You really need to get competent legal counsel, experienced in free software, involved in such a thing. The FSF, OSI, and CreativeCommons are good resources; Groklaw might also be helpful. I can see the need for a good free font license, but this is not a task for amateurs.
yes, I read it, and the "support" for OFL is not nearly as strong as is claimed Posted Jan 28, 2006 16:50 UTC (Sat) by yosch (guest, #4675) [Link] Well, thanks again for your respectful insights.
We actually submitted the license to many experts in the community including Lawrence Lessig, Eben Moglen and Bruce Perens. We are in touch with Debian and Ubuntu people and are discussing the license with debian-legal. The discussion with the community is by no means stopping.
No license is ever perfect. The Open Font License 1.0 is designed to enable font designers to work together and improve the state of non-restricted typography and I think we're getting there.
Of course, there will always be those who prefer criticizing...
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yes, I read it, and the "support" for OFL is not nearly as strong as is claimed Posted Jan 29, 2006 13:36 UTC (Sun) by rehdon (guest, #29998) [Link] I, for one, am grateful for your efforts in providing a high quality font to open source user.
rehdon
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