ricardo lafuente wrote:
Nicolas Spalinger wrote:
I would say no: because of the major issue that Creative Commons
licenses are designed and used for content and not software.
CC strongly discourages using a CC combination for software:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F
IMHO we don't want to add extra confusion to the choice of licenses.
This is a point that the whole hype around Creative Commons made a lot
less visible than necessary.
Their choice is probably due to some confusion regarding font licensing,
like you say -- they seem to come from the design world, and after years
of seeing commercial licenses, it's fitting that you run for the first
airhole you'd see when you want to 'go open-source' and escape from the
proprietary logic.
I'm pretty sure that they'd change their terms if someone would approach
them and point the caveats like you just did. It looks like a good
opportunity to get in touch with designers (who come from the other side
of the fence, in a way), and a great way for OFLB and the OFL to gain
visibility, maybe?
Hi Ricardo,
You make an excellent point :-)
Is anyone already in contact with them and could ping them about this
issue in a friendly way? We could imagine a wiki entry of people we'd
like to contact and point out/discuss licensing issues with, what do you
think? They'd probably listen to fellow designers :-)
Also -- after Ellen Lupton's release and advocacy of the Free Font
Manifesto* (http://www.designwritingresearch.org/free_fonts.html), the
design world has become pretty aware of the whole issue of
open-source/freedom. However, there's not a lot of legal awareness
inside that ecosystem, which results in confusion such as the one you
remarked here regarding CC licensing of fonts (which remarkably few
designers see as software instead of content or artwork).
Indeed, it's great that the awareness is rising, but it's very important
for us to be serious and clear with our policy and not sloppy about
licensing metadata and so on. As Nicolas M. rightfully pointed out
earlier, I also see a big part of the OFLB's scope and purpose as
encouraging such best practises.
To me at least, it looks like everybody would win if someone from the
OFLB would approach the guys from the 'League of Movable Type', and --
who knows -- other designers who are releasing their fonts as freeware.
I agree 100%.
* which, of course, can be very criticised for its apparent confusion
between freeware and libre; however, it does clearly state that 'Like
open source software, the freedom of the fonts shown on this page is
made explicit through their licensing, which allows other people to not
only use the fonts but to modify them'.
Cheers,
--
Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer
Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary
http://planet.open-fonts.org
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