[OpenFontLibrary] [GFD] Treatment of the OFL in the wild

[Vernon Adams]

On 5 Jun 2013, at 05:38, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:

> On 4 June 2013 12:54, Vernon Adams <vern at newtypography.co.uk> wrote:
>> (a) webfonts, used by css linkage etc and (b) base64 encoded Woff files placed in the users browser cache.
>> (a) works well. (b) really sucks. takes extra effort and know-how to pull
> 
> Err no, not really?
> 
> You can find the data by clicking in a WebKit browser: Develop, Show
> Web Inspector, Resources, click a font, see the base64 data, copy it,
> paste it into http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp
> and the browser downloads a file.
> 
> Its also trivial to do it from the command line.
> http://askubuntu.com/questions/178521/how-can-i-decode-a-base64-string-from-the-command-line
> 
>> a full, non-subsetted font,
> 
> I'm not sure you can, the subsetting is done on the server…


erm.. so… i was right then :)  it sucks as a way of enabling fonts as "free and easy to obtain and use" ;p

But anyway, the important thing is that this IS how libre fonts are being distributed more and more.

> 
>> get at that pulled base64'd font, and eventually, be able to use it for e.g. a print project.
>> 
>> So my point is with (b). I would want my fonts to come out the other end of (b) still fully marked it as a Free font,
> 
> They do
> 
>> and not as a font that is some sort of orphan.  If OFL fonts are going to be increasingly
>> distributed in this way, i think we have to rely more on standalone font files and much
>> less on license text files, font log text files, etc.
> 
> The requirements are the same if the font is distributed as a
> standalone file or as a collection of font files and text files.

I think i'm being understood a little :) My point is only this;
 if we are moving more into libre fonts being distributed via web browser caches and / or embedding (either real or 'faux'), then i think it's worth looking at how to make the standalone font binary object do all the carrying of licensing info & permissions that is needed. And, what could that look like? Obviously we don't want long texts added to metadata, so what would be some 'good ideas'?

-v