[Openfontlibrary] [ATypI] Disallowing Font Modification

[Dave Crossland]

On 11/07/07, Adam Twardoch <list.adam at twardoch.com> wrote:
>
> I do think that serializing fonts or storing electronic license
> abstracts would be very useful for INFORMATIONAL purposes. Software such
> as font managers or font editors could display information about the
> licensing terms in a clear way

Yes, making license abstracts easy to display is a very good idea for users.

The font freedom movement is going in the other direction -
modification is permitted and _encouraged_ - and so is working towards
this kind of functionality on the GNOME and KDE desktops.

FontForge has a "one click" button for inserting the SIL Open Font License
into fonts.

Software-freedom license abstracts explain the freedoms you are meant
to have and benefit from. Allowing typographers to compare the
freedoms they can enjoy with various fonts would be very useful.

> The scheme that Linotype currently employs seems reasonable to me: a
> custom table that holds an encoded serial number inside of the font, and
> a digital signature on top of that. The user can, of course, remove the
> table with the serial number, but this will invalidate the digital
> signature, and the user will not be able to sign the font again "as
> Linotype". So for Linotype tech support, it is easy to find out if a
> font has been "tampered with", and if so, the user has no warranty
> rights. I think that is a reasonable scheme. Anything that goes way
> beyond that is, in my opinion, unrealistic.

That's interesting, and validating the font for warranty purposes is legitimate.

-- 
Regards,
Dave