[OpenFontLibrary] OFL problems, IPA License annoyances

[Nicolas Spalinger]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> 
> Le Lun 6 avril 2009 21:54, Dave Crossland a écrit :
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I doubt anyone but the IPA people will use it, it is overly
> restrictive and makes it impractical to use anything but the original
> font. It's a very convoluted way to say "free to use but not modify)

Indeed, I don't think what the world needs now is having every
well-meaning government agency cook up their own incompatible
project-specific license...

Sounds like a recipe for future combinatoric nightmare...

>> I hope this will help in the updating of the GNU GPL Font Exception
>> :-)

I don't think it's such a useful source of inspiration...

> I don't think it it very well worded. For example it seems the
> licensing only lays the rules for direct recipients of a document with
> embedded fonts. The definitions had some potential, but they spoiled
> it by being overly verbose and distinguishing "digital content" from
> "digital document file".
> 
> They would have been better advised to lay minimal conditions in
> simple words and not let their lawyers pile up unrelated fell-good
> material in the licensing.

Yes, legalese at maximum density, with references to references :-(



-- 
Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer
Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary
http://planet.open-fonts.org


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