[Openfontlibrary] new release of the Ubuntu titling font

Victor Gaultney vtype at gaultney.org
Sat Jan 5 13:51:12 PST 2008


Dave -

Please pardon the brief and somewhat edgy reply, as it is Saturday night.
:-)

> This is applies to outlines and other simple kind of data included
> wholly in font object code. But font software is not purely outlines...

Yes - I think I covered that well in my email (if you read down a bit).

> Consider named guidelines. Access to this "source code" is essential
> for fair collaboration; If I was to try to modify Charis, I would be
> at a disadvantage compared to the original authors since I can only
> guess at what the armature upon which the shapes are drawn looks like.

That would be good - and I would welcome some standard means of representing
such data as long as there were also ways to export/import such data into
that format from FF and FL.

But also keep in mind that some of those types of data can be application
specific, and are analogous to source code colouring algorithms in code
editors. Do I need to release the source code colouring module used by the
application I use to edit GPL code? I actually think that almost all of this
type of useful stuff in FontLab *would* be useful outside of FL, but we do
have to be a bit careful about being too dogmatic about it all.

> If I open up Charis in FontForge, make modifications and call it
> "Chavis," I expect to be able to compile my font to work just like the
> original. That the scripts and control files are not released yet
> means I can't do this.
> 
> This is basically *nuts* - and is exactly what the GPL protects us all
> against and why it is the most popular free software license.
> 
> Coincidentally, this week Michel Boyer from the University of Montreal
> is falling foul of exactly this problem with Charis on the
> fontforge-users list.

Well... the GPL would have been very problematic for us, and we wouldn't
have used it. Neither Michel nor anyone else would have had the rights to
use Charis as a starting point.

What would have been nuts would have been for us to sit around holding
Charis all to ourselves until we had every wrinkle in every build script
worked out, and every app fully supporting what we had to do. The early
years of Doulos/Charis/Gentium development were a major challenge for us,
and full of messy manual tweaking and fixing to overcome FL bugs, app
misbehaviour, OT spec infelicities, etc. If we had taken the effort to
document such as moving target we would have never completed anything. We
chose to release something that worked for the user - and worked very well -
and gave everyone the freedom to modify it as they could.

We also constantly worked toward removing the barriers to a more transparent
build process. This had taken effort and time, and patience as app
developers fixed bugs that kept hindering us from smooth development.

> No license requires full release of original source _for a free built path_.

A dogmatic reading of many FLOSS licenses says precisely that.

> You used FontLab to develop your font software. Although FontLab "VFB"
> files depend on FontLab, which is proprietary software, that does not
> effect the moral obligation to distribute these source code files when
> you distribute the corresponding object code files and "trap" people
> like Michel Boyer.

I think I know you well enough to know that your accusation of entrapment is
merely a rhetorical device, but not everyone on this may realise that. If
you have a real accusation, make it privately first, please. And I welcome
any dialogue with Michel. If he feels trapped than he doesn't have to use
our software. At least we don't trap people like some big software companies
do. Hey - I'm on your side!

We feel our moral obligation is to release whatever resources we can, as
soon as we are able, and as widely and usefully as possible. We also feel an
obligation to not deceive people by saying we release 'everything', but give
them a build system that is impossible to replicate successfully and
requires manual tweaking that we cannot easily explain.

And to say it again - we do release .vfb files with some projects (including
Gentium).

> However, because VFBs require other people to use only FontLab, it
> leaves out people using other font editors - free or otherwise. Using
> a "standard" source code format that is supported by many font editors
> would be ideal and "rescue" your fonts.

Did you not read my whole email? We are planning on doing just that in the
best way we can.

> The "UFO" format from the Robofab project is a strong candidate...

But as you say, it is not yet complete enough. :-)
 
> Until a good font source code format is available, I strongly
> recommend publishing your VFBs and all the software you use to compile
> your fonts.

I thought I said we were already planning to do that.

> Complete source code does give the free software movement much more
> functionality - essential and basic functionality, in fact - so this
> requirement is important to have, and I don't think it is complicated,
> nor do I think it will push away designers if it is explained simply
> and the benefits are clear.
> 
> Indeed, I hope that the next version of the OFL (v2?) will include
> such a requirement.

I doubt we would make the OFL more restrictive, but I would be open to any
specific suggestions on how this could be done. It would require specifying
the exact format of what could be considered 'complete source code', and I
honestly doubt that can be done. It is an inherent problem with the current
state of font software - there *is* no standard source.

>> As I mentioned before, I think that option has some problems, and I
>> certainly wouldn't recommend it. If we felt it was an adequate solution
>> there would be no need for the OFL. :-)
> 
> Please explain what those problems are precisely (or point me to where
> you already explained them if I missed it :-)

IIRC, there was good discussion of this on the OFL list some time ago. That
would also be a more appropriate place for further discussion.

> (When are you next visiting the Department of Typography at the
> University of Reading? We could record a podcast discussing these
> problem then, if you can't spare the time to write an email :-)

I'd rather not participate in a podcast on this, as I suspect the
interviewer might not be very fair to my point of view. ;-) But I'd be happy
to have just a normal chat with you.

I will be back in Reading in late Feb IIRC, but also have a very full load
of teaching that day. But we can try to squeeze something in.

See you then,

Victor





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