Christopher Fynn wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> The single priority I have for openfontlibrary is: > >> Creating a new openfontlibrary without any copyleft fonts. (and banning >> any new ones from appearing) > >> Initially, Openfontlibrary was created as a place for fonts dedicated to >> the Public Domain.
IIRC various early contributors also expressed their willingness to review fonts under PD and get them re-released under something they find more adapted to the goals of the library. >> Things dedicated to the public domain are not >> copyleft. Copycenter licenses such as the BSD license, the MIT license, >> etc would also not be copyleft. Well, we can debate at length about where in the licensing spectrum we want to be... There are differing views and it's OK. Personally I agree that non-copyleft Free Software licenses like BSD, ISC and MIT/X11/Expat have a key role to play (they do already thankfully!) but I notice how bigger and more inclusive communities form around copyleft models because of the implicit trust and the lower possibilities of getting contributions locked away from the Commons. The Golden Rule, tit-for-tat, call it however you want... That's one of the reasons why my preference goes to copyleft for fonts and font sources. And more precisely "weak copyleft" for the OFL. If you branch you inherit the licensing of where you branched from. Providing source is recommended but not required. I'm interested in what others in the OFLB think on this subject. > Perhaps most people read "Open" to imply "Open Source" or FOSS. I associate "open" (as in the Open Font License) to the wide FLOSS Free/Libre and Open Source Sofware spectrum of communities: "open fonts" is designed to refer to unrestricted libre free software fonts. The "open" in Open Font License isn't linked to the "open source" brand. > I'm wondering how many generally useful fonts are truly "Public Domain"? > If you remove OFL and GPL'd fonts and similar from the Open Font Library > how many Public Domain fonts are left? A key issue to consider IMHO. Public domain is still very hairy is certain jurisdiction and causes problems as a global license. I'd say that a big portion of the fonts under PD have unclear background and sometimes dubious origin (taken from restricted fonts sometimes). One example was some blocks from MPH 2B Damase: see the thread on this list on Feb 2007 and Victor Gaultney's recommendations. There are obviously exceptions and legit PD fonts but my understanding from various designers is that this is the general feeling. If you are the author and stand behind a design, attach your name to it to create trust. If you don't care about the other rights/freedoms, use a license with attribution instead of PD. Honour the existing copyright mechanisms. Provide a history of the project (FONTLOG-like). OTOH using a Creative Commons combination for fonts themselves is discouraged by CC itself as these licenses are designed for content whereas fonts are software. Granted it's a special kind of software but it *is* software. >> I'm mostly afraid openfontlibrary is moving in the direction of becoming >> the (however small) sourceforge of fonts. (Sourceforge is a popular open >> source software website featuring mostly copyleft software.) >> >> If anyone would suggest the best way to make this happen, I'm all ears... >> >> Remember, I own the openfontlibrary.com and .net domains, the >> non-copyleft version of openfontlibrary could go there. I started >> talking privately with (rejon) about this idea last year, but that never >> really went anywhere. > > Having one under openfontlibrary.org and another under > openfontlibrary.net or openfontlibrary.com sounds like a recipe for > confusion... Yes, agreed. Similar domain names pointing to sites with different policies/content is rather confusing. IMHO we don't want to abuse the trust of visitors/contributors. Wanting one and finding the other is less than ideal. >> I understand the majority (but not all) of the people involved with this >> project are pro-copyleft, but I really want to have a non-copyleft >> openfontlibrary. Mmm, sounds like if you want only fonts that can become proprietary again, and not a fuller spectrum (you mention banning copyleft fonts above) then IMHO a side project is probably best. >> FF -- Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer http://planet.open-fonts.org
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