[OpenFontLibrary] PT Sans

[Christoph Schäfer]

Hi Dave, 

in other circumstances I'd enjoy a detailed discussion, but a dictum stating a 
font is "not legally redistributable" simply because the creator uses a 
modified license defies not only common sense, but also the "spirit" of open 
licensing.

<snip>

> > A license is not a discussion of a legal topic. An article in a law
> > magazine would be.
>
> Although your English is excellent, I'll try to be more careful about
> my choice of phrasing.
>
> A license is not a discussion of a legal topic, but a license text
> 'discusses' ("is about") a legal topic - the copyright status of a
> work to which the license applies.

The work is a subject to the accompanying license. Quite frankly, I don't see 
any reason to apply your broad definition of "discussion" to any 
legal/licensing text. This would be a futile exercise in any court, no matter 
whether it's a Common Law or a Civil Law institution.

A license doesn't or at least should not "discuss" the status of its subject; 
the purpose of a license is to define its status and the terms of use.

>
> I can imagine that texts submitted to a court for the public record,
> or texts published by a government which dedicates all governmental
> publications to the public domain, can be referred to as 'legal texts'
> and have public domain status.
>
> But I am not sure why a copyright license is given a different status
> to any other literary work simply because of its topic.

See James Cloos's posting.

>
> What is your definition of "legal text"?
>
> > You're wrong, full stop.
>
> I may be wrong, and I welcome being corrected, but you haven't
> persuaded me yet.
>
> You accepted that in some jurisdictions, a copyright license is
> subject to copyright restrictions as a literary work.

Are you referring to my GPL Copyright hint? Well, I have an answer for you ;) 
If you were free to change the text of the OFL or the GPL and still be able 
to allege that your license is the OFL/GPL, the name of the license would be 
useless. Hence the copyright notice: You can only claim to be 
OFL/GPL-compliant if "OFL" or "GPL" mean something. But once you distribute 
your content under a license that says "'OFL'/'GPL'/'MPL' with the following 
exceptions" or something similar, you're fine. You can even use excerpts and 
call it "EULA" ;)

If SIL doesn't accept this common practice, OFL should run for the hills and 
create its own license ASAP.

>
> I assert PT Sans is not legally redistributable worldwide, 

An assertion that's hard to agree with, at least wrt most, if not all national 
legal systems.

> and so I 
> suggest we do not accept it on OFLB.

I'm absolutely neutral in this regard ;)

>
> I have contacted Paratype, I'll let the list know what they say.
>

Great, and thanks for the effort!

Christoph