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

[Dave Crossland]

On 5 June 2013 10:28, Vernon Adams <vern at newtypography.co.uk> wrote:
>> 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

Because it isn't the primary distribution point. The files are subsets
of the fonts from the primary distribution point, and have no
improvements. I don't see a problem here.

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

I don't see this as important.

> 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.

Web distribution means its trivial to meet the requirements through
aggregate distribution rather than single file distribution, and
single file distribution is bad on the web as it hurts users by
increasing latency.

> And, what could that look like? Obviously we don't
> want long texts added to metadata, so what would be
> some 'good ideas'?

I think what GF does today could be improved by including FONTLOG.txt
files in the ZIP bundles. That's it.