[OpenFontLibrary] OpenFontLibrary Digest, Vol 35, Issue 29

[Fontfreedom at aol.com]

>    I think requiring the font exception would be ideal -  ie, removing the
>    2nd category above.
>
>FWIW, I  don't agree.  I liked your earlier conception much better: if
>it's  under a free software license, it can be in OFLB.  For one thing,
>it  makes for a much simpler decision process than "we accept free
>licenses  a, b, c, but not d, e, and f".  What basis is there to  exclude
>some?
>
>It is possible a font designer would  *choose* to license under GPL
>without font exception.  Not that I  know of any actual examples, it's
>always just been ignorance, but it's  conceivable.
>
>   the largest collection I know of are  the URW fonts that are
>   distributed as part of Ghostscript,  which predate the "font
>   exception."
>
>A form of the  GPL font exception appears in the PFB's of most of the URW
>font packages  I have seen, although whether it was legally added, I
>don't know.   Aladdin and URW don't answer on these topics, in my
>experience  :(.


 
Adding a font embedding exception to any license does make it (the license)  
non-canonical to start with.
 
2ndly...is it really needed? An open source license by itself should  be 
enough to embed fonts in documents.
Each license needs to be evaluated to see if it really needs a font  
embedding exception.
 
3rd...IF for whatever reason someone wanted this, it would be possible to  
use an open source license for a font, but NOT allow embedding. (That would have 
 to be in a hypothetical derivative / add on license & in the font's metadata 
 settings.) It's actually probably more likely an open source font author 
made  some mistake in including a no embedding option in the font metadata, at 
least  in the case of an open source font with a no embedding option engaged.
 
Ghostscript also includes the Hershey Fonts, a set of public domain  fonts...
I've wondered if there are modern versions of the Hershey Fonts avalible,  ie 
.ttf & .otf.
The Hershey fonts are a standout among public domain fonts insofar as  they 
are not dedicated to the public domain, instead they were created by the  U.S. 
Federal Government. (whose works are public domain)
 
A common distribution of the Hershey fonts includes this statement:
 
USE RESTRICTION:
This  distribution of the Hershey Fonts may be used by anyone  for
any purpose, commercial or  otherwise, providing  that:
1. The following acknowledgements must be distributed  with
the font  data:
- The Hershey Fonts were originally created by  Dr.
A. V. Hershey while working at the U.  S.
National Bureau of  Standards.
- The format of the Font data in this  distribution
was originally created  by
James  Hurt
Cognition,  Inc.
900 Technology Park  Drive
Billerica, MA  01821
(mit-eddie!ci-dandelion!hurt)
2. The font data in this distribution may be converted  into
any other format *EXCEPT* the format distributed  by
the U.S. NTIS (which organization holds the  rights
to the distribution and use of the font data in  that
particular format). Not that anybody would  really
*want* to use their format... each point is  described
in eight bytes as "xxx yyy:", where xxx and yyy  are
the coordinate values as ASCII numbers.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I wonder if NTIS's format provides more accuracy than James Hurt's  format.
I also wonder about the accuracy of _2. The font data..._ Seems very  dubious.
If all he did was convert NTIS's data, nobody would have to follow these  
usage restrictions at all, #1 or #2.
 
 
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