> This is not a copyright problem but a trademark problem.
> If company X owns trademark Y, they can sue you for using the
> name Y, no matter whether you use it for a freeware program,
> a pixel font, or a new sports utility vehicle. Even if they
> don't care about the commercial value of some pixel font,
> they may care about the commercial value of their trademark.
>
>
Uwe is exactly correct.
If you look at the license the Bitstream Vera family will soon be under
(see www.gnome.org/fonts), there are 2 reasons for the clause requiring
a name change if modifications are made:
1) to protect Bitstream's trademark; if something is called Bitstream Vera,
they stand behind the quality, and don't want any bad reflection on their
name, and,
2) Gnome wants to ensure that if you open a font of those names, that
the contents are what the application is expecting, so that our applications
have known behavior.
We do have a provision to work with Bitstream to add to the Vera family;
if for any reason in the long term that cooperation maintaining the
usefulness of Vera were to break down, we'd change the names we use to
a different name, and set up font subsitutions to compensate for existing
applications. We hope/expect that that would never occur, but one
does have to check with the font vendor that they are comfortable with
any changes, or if they judged you were damaging their trademark, the
font vendor would have grounds (both morally and legally) to be upset.
This is also why the permission of derivative works, (not present in the
B&H Luxi fonts) is important: it covers the case not only to allow the
community to hack on the fonts, but also to allow maintenance should a
cooperative relationship fail for any reason. In the particular case
of Chuck Bigelow, this doesn't concern me too much, but the fonts would
have been of substantially greater value if it had been more feasible
to do work on them; when you get to larger companies, this is a bigger
concern.
And part of the incentive to donate the fonts in the first place is to
get their name out there in fonts likely to be widely used, so having
their name in the font name is also important to help generate donations
like this to the community.
One cannot/should not presume that additions will meet with approval.
- Jim
--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
HP Labs,
Hewlett-Packard Company
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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