[Openfontlibrary] On the license of Adobe Utopia font

[Jon Phillips]

Hats off to you on the work on this first!

On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 18:22 -0500, Karl Berry wrote:
> * the font would need to be modified (reasonably)
> 
> Well, that's the only time the whole question comes up.
> 
>     * the font would need to be renamed, or if same name kept, or similar
>     name, authorization needed by Adobe
> 
> I agree.
> 
>     * then, group outlined in the license adobe provides, TEX user group,
> 
> No, TUG has no rights to change any licensing -- we (er, I am the
> president of TUG) only have the right to sublicense under the agreement
> Adobe made with us, which we did.
> 
> The agreement explicitly says that Adobe retains copyright ownership.
> See lines 51ff of LICENSE-utopia.txt.
> 
> So if you want to get the original license changed to the OFL, it's
> Adobe you have to get to do that.  Good luck.
> 
>     would need to make another license, preferably OFL which respects
>     adobe's first license
> 
> I fail to see why you say that.  As I explained, I personally believe
> anyone can make a new font based on Utopia where the "original" parts
> are under the Utopia license and the new parts are under the OFL.
> If you want to go that way.  (I wouldn't, myself.)

Which way would you go then?

>     Sound like a plan? Anyone interested in updating/rescuing this font?
> 
> I don't think the term "rescue" is appropriate.  Terry O'Donnell of
> Adobe, others at Adobe, and I spent a whole lot of time truly rescuing
> Utopia from its *previous* state, where the redistribution of modified
> versions was in an ambiguous state, and various free software
> pseudo-lawyers (no one else) insisted on the worst possible
> interpretation.

IANAL and hopefully try to stay away from armchair lawyer, as I
apparently have done in this thread ;) Regardless, great work on
this...I dunno, you might be amazed what Adobe would do to relicense
Utopia ;)

> Now the fonts are clearly free.  My advice is, enjoy them.
> 
> karl

Sounds good...easiest solution, make new fonts released into PD or with
OFL license ;)

Jon

-- 
Jon Phillips
San Francisco, CA + Guangzhou + Beijing
GLOBAL +1.415.830.3884
CHINA +86.1.360.282.8624
jon at rejon.org
http://www.rejon.org
IM/skype: kidproto
Jabber: rejon at gristle.org
IRC: rejon at irc.freenode.net