[OpenFontLibrary] OpenFontLibrary Digest, Vol 36, Issue 6

[Fontfreedom at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/18/2008 12:00:44 PM Pacific Standard Time,  
openfontlibrary-request at lists.freedesktop.org writes:
From: "Rob Myers"  <rob at robmyers.org>
Subject: Re: [OpenFontLibrary] License your fonts  under MIT / X11!!
To: "Open Font Library"  <openfontlibrary at lists.freedesktop.org>
Message-ID:
<7fa25200812180136o36061904l773906de489ce26e at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 5:39 AM,   <Fontfreedom at aol.com> wrote:
> I do think I want to push for fonts  licensed under the MIT / X11 license, 
on
> one of these new sites people  are
> building, we need some pages urging people to release new fonts  under that
> particular license. I think this could be a core/reccomended  open source
> license for fonts.

I don't understand why, either  ideologically or practically.

Some projects should be public domain, Open  Clipart is a good example.
But fonts are expressible as self-contained  software and so there is
no reason not to use copyleft to protect people's  ability to use them.

MIT/X11 is a minor licence. I wouldn't recommend it  over revised BSD
and I certainly wouldn't recommend it over a copyleft  licence.

- Rob.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oh, I know...Instead of the revised BSD license, we should instead  encourage 
the Free BSD license, which more modern software uses. (and, it's not  to be 
confused with the "FreeBSD Documentation License")
Also freebsd's license is sometimes just called "The FreeBSD Copyright". 
 
MIT/X11 isn't that minor. It's used in quite a number of important software  
projects. Unlike the BSD license, there is ONE version. It's simple,  
straightforward...Seems like it would be good for fonts...Although...the one  drawback 
is that it does require attribution, which is one big reason  people use the 
public domain, (no attribution of the original author(s)  required.)
 
_http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php_ 
(http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php) 
 
Does anyone know of any open source licenses which don't require  attribution?
Attribution makes it kind bad for when someone wants to for example sell a  
font commercially which is derived from someone else's font... 
 
FF
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