[OpenFontLibrary] OFL problems, IPA License annoyances

[Ed Trager]

Hi, All,

I've added IPA license detection to Fontaine:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r20 | edtrager | 2009-04-06 17:40:31 -0400 (Mon, 06 Apr 2009) | 1 line

Added Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) license
which is now an Open Source approved license
(http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html). Thanks to Dave
Crossland for this information.
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- Ed


On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> More licensing curmudgeon-ry from me I'm afraid :-)
>
> A new OSI approved font license is out, the Japanese "IPA Font License":
>
>    http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html
>
> The OFLB is only going to run with the most popular free font
> licenses, to encourage license consolidation, so I doubt the OFLB will
> accept IFL fonts anyway.
>
> So, if you're not interested in font licensing, please note the
> existence of the license and mark this thread as read :-)
>
> I wonder if the story of its creation will be published to the same
> extent that the SIL OFL process has been documented; I guess that
> there was some kind of wrestling match between proprietary-minded font
> developers and freedom-minded customers.
>
> Some of the history is revealed with a quick search: Bruce Perens has
> been helpfully guiding the drafts of this -
> http://perens.com/blog/?s=open+font - although, sadly, his original
> objections which I share about only distributing derived versions as
> "diff" files - http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:516:200902:ahjoeececbbcpiajppfi
> - apply to the final OSI approved license.
>
> Although I'm happy some Japanese fonts are being released with an OSI
> approved license, this diff requirement makes it a very poor license
> IMO. The draft Perens linked to at
> http://ipafont.ipa.go.jp/enduser_license_draft090304.pdf has the
> makings of a much better license, and is probably only interesting to
> me so I'll skip over my thoughts about it here.
>
> However, the key thing about the license is that it (appears to) patch
> the "PDF loophole" that Perens claims the SIL OFL has at
> http://perens.com/blog/2009/02/17/64/
>
>    "loophole that would allow the conversion of any font under the
> license to public domain"
>
> OFL S5: "he Font Software, modified or unmodified, in part or in
> whole, must be distributed entirely under this license, and must not
> be distributed under any other license. The requirement for fonts to
> remain under this license does not apply to any document created using
> the Font Software."
> - http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL_web
>
> IFL S2.4: "In the case of a Digital Document File containing Embedded
> Fonts created by embedding such fonts to the extent allowed under this
> Agreement, the Recipient may conduct Reproduction and Other
> Exploitation of the Digital Document File, without requiring the
> Recipient of such Digital Document File to comply with this Agreement.
>  For the avoidance of doubt, such Recipient may not create and conduct
> Reproduction and Other Exploitation of a Derived Program from such
> Digital Document File except according to the terms of this
> Agreement."
> - http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html
>
> I hope this will help in the updating of the GNU GPL Font Exception :-)
>
> Cheers
> Dave
>