[OpenFontLibrary] [GFD] Treatment of the OFL in the wild

[Vernon Adams]

Sorry. I need to clarify where i was going with this :)
My point is not really to do with licensing (i know fonts can be embedded under the OFL). But, i'm aware that embedding has not really been seen as a 'best practise' way of distributing libre fonts. When i say distributing, i mean *spreading them around*, not simply *allowing them to be used*. 
Now, i know some designers will say that the 'most proper' way to distribute libre fonts is as full-on source package, and then there is the Google webfont approach; binaries up front, git repos of source files at the back. etc etc.
What i'm suggesting, may be seen as "lowering the bar" :) but i'm interested in ideas  turn the sort of situation some of us have with Adobe, font squirrel, etc, on it's head;  instead of seeing these situations as problems (because these services are not making freely available binary files, or source files), i wonder if it's possible to see advantages instead. One advantage i see is that a font served as a single font object (and not a bundle of license texts, source files etc) is way more mobile, free (as in bird), and able to spread virally. It may be simple a case of adding licensing info with font metadata, and not relying on bundles text files.

ps - someone should build a web service, that pulls the obfuscated OFL's fonts from the Edge / Typekit etc servers, parses them, prepares them, and then builds them back into a OTF, TTF, and a @font-face kit for easy download. Would be cool ;)

-v


On 4 Jun 2013, at 08:19, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:

> Embedding fonts you can't extract easily is ok too. The point here is that Web fonts are never embedding, they are always separate resources that are linked to documents.
> 
> On Jun 4, 2013 11:13 AM, "Vernon Adams" <vern at newtypography.co.uk> wrote:
> Are we saying that embedding a font that a user can extract, is a perfectly acceptable (i.e. FLOSS-like) way of distributing a libre font?
> I like the idea of that, but i'm trying to think of what weaknesses in that method, and what could be ways to enable embedding as a means of distribution whilst also protecting the freedom of the font?
> 
> -vern
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 4 Jun 2013, at 08:05, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
> 
> > Extracting the fonts is just as easy
> >
> > On Jun 4, 2013 4:59 AM, "Victor Gaultney" <vtype at gaultney.org> wrote:
> > On 3 Jun 2013, at 23:47, Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny at eglug.org> wrote:
> >
> >> You can embed a webfont as base64 encoded string inside the HTML file.
> >
> > Good point, Khaled. That does sound like traditional embedding. The key differences from standard web fonts use are that:
> >
> > - The font is delivered as part of the HTML file, not a separate resource
> > - The font is provided by the same server as the rest of the doc
> > - The font is used for only one document
> > - The font is always present, even if the doc is viewed offline
> >
> > I'm not sure whether an embedded web font would be any more difficult to extract than normal web fonts. Anyone have thoughts on this?
> >
> > These differences are significant. Nicolas has been out of the office for a couple of weeks. When he gets back in the office I'll talk with him about adjusting the FAQ and web fonts paper to address fonts delivered within the HTML file.
> >
> >> Even the common case of just linking to the file is not much different
> >> from bundling the font in the zip container of ODT or DOCX.
> >
> > I think it is. In a zip the fonts travel with the doc and they cannot be used by other docs unless you extract them.
> >
> > V
>