[Openfontlibrary] more updates on Open Font Library

[Dave Crossland]

On 23/10/06, Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org> wrote:
>
> > Open Font License
> > CC licenses
> > FreeArt license
> > GNU GPL v2
>
> I'm not sure...fonts are a very murky area which pushes me to think
> public domain is the way (like clip art)

I will write about this ASAP, but I think public domain is a bad idea
for fonts - like you say, its a murky area, and the OFL does the best
job IMO.

Real life is literally tugging at my coattails, so I'll keep it terse:

> The Open Font License sounds reasonable, but I'm curious to hear more
> ideas about its usage.

The success of FLOSS is centered around a solid foundation of
consensus about the GPL.

The success of the Free Font Movement [0] depends very much around
licensing consensus.

The Open Font License is a Free license recognised by the pillars of
the community (FontForge [1], OSI, FSF, FDo, Debian, GNOME, KDE, etc
etc) that is specifically written for Fonts.

Existing Free Font projects have recently switched or are considering
switching to the OFL. [3]

I believe the OFLicense should therefore be the only option for the
OFLibrary, to help accelerate the momemtum of the OFLicense.

I'd concede using the GPL for historic compatibility like Unifont [4],
but I'd rather persuade font projects currently using the GPL to start
using the OFL and then offering their OFL version on OFLibrary.

Sorry for being terse, gotta go!

[0]: http://www.designwritingresearch.org/free_fonts.html

[1]: http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/faq.html#license

[3]: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=OFL_fonts

LinuxLibertine and Consolata are OFL/GPL dual or OFL, and there is
movement torwards OFL at Bitstream :-)

[4]: http://www.unifont.org/fontguide/

-- 
Regards,
Dave