[OpenFontLibrary] Should we offer EOT fonts (hosted from out the USA?)

[Dave Crossland]

2009/5/16 Liam R E Quin <liam at holoweb.net>:
> On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 19:02 +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
> [...]
>> However, patent problems mean we'd have to run this from a server
>> outside the USA.
>
> That something is patented somewhere doesn't _necessarily_ preclude
> its use... what exactly is the problem (reply privately if you
> prefer).

AIUI, USA software idea patents cover usage of infringing software as
well as writing such software. So if our server, located in Oregon
USA, did the conversions, then the people who operate the server would
have a patent liability. I'm not sure if just distributing files which
are compressed with a patented compression scheme would be patent
infringment liability though.

The last thing I want is Microsoft, Bitstream or Monotype - known EOT
patent holders - suing anyone involved in the Open Font Library for
patent infringement.

I'm not saying they would, I doubt that they would, and I hope they
would not, but, I suspect they could, if we ran the conversion on the
server and they wanted to attack us for some reason I'll leave to your
imagination.

>> I think promoting the fact that web fonts are here and now (well, by
>> the end of the year they will be) and work cross platform on all major
>> browsers is crucially important, so we should make this happen.
>>
>> What do you think?
>
> I think it's really excellent good idea!

:-)