[OpenFontLibrary] Verbose license text in a font

[Nicolas Spalinger]

Chris Lilley wrote:
> Hello ,
> 
> Seen on www-font recently:
> 
>> Gentium won't work in IE8/Win 7 due to a regression bug in the
>> t2embed library; as part of a Windows security patch the decision
>> was made to not load fonts with more than 5K in a name table record,
>> which includes fonts like Gentium which includes the entire Open
>> Font License text in the license name record.
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-font/2009JulSep/1209.html
> 
> Is it common for license text to be included in a font (rather than a
> link to the license)?

Yes, this is the case for the vast majority of open fonts.

The OT spec provides both License and License_URL fields in the name
table for this purpose and all authors should take advantage of it.
One for the license itself and one for a URL pointing to the upstream
license page (which is increasingly exposed to the user and clickable BTW).

Recommended best practises in the open font community are to indicate
licensing terms very clearly and not rely on some vague reference. The
licensing metadata should really travel with the item itself for maximum
clarity. (An external copyright notice and FONTLOG is also recommended).

I don't see why any Windows limitation should change that.

Cheers,

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


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