Re: [Openfontlibrary] FontEmbedding.com

[Liam R E Quin]

On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 00:35 +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
[...]
> Bitstream hold plenty of software patents on all this stuff, and they
> aren't involved in the W3C, so anyone who wants to implement anything
> like EOT is going to be screwed by them.

Bitstream (as I've mentioned to you before) is an active W3C Member.

Please don't spread unsubstantiated rumours.

Thanks,

Liam

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Re: [Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[Dave Crossland]

2008/7/24 George Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>
>> I'd vote against unclear PD,
>
> Um... given that there are already a bunch of fonts released under "PD"
> isn't it a bit late to remove it?

I guess we'll just have to have an American resubmit those fonts with
a globally-valid no-terms license ;-)

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Dave
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Re: [Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[George Williams]

On Thu, 2008-07-24 at 07:03, Nicolas Spalinger wrote:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
> > 2008/7/24 Christopher Fynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >> Is there any reason why an option for GPL + Font Exception or even for
> >> GPL is not included?
> > 
> > Lack of developer time.
> 
> I'd say it's also a question of agreeing on the policy.
> 
> I'd vote against unclear PD, 
Um... given that there are already a bunch of fonts released under "PD"
isn't it a bit late to remove it?

Or did you mean something else and I'm misunderstanding?


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Re: [Openfontlibrary] Jomolhari font

[Christopher Fynn]

I wrote:

> 
> BTW Can someone fix it so the .png font sample appears with the font.

O.K. I Worked out how to do that myself using "Manage Files"

- C


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[Openfontlibrary] Jomolhari font

[Christopher Fynn]

> BTW, impressive work on the Jomolhari font :-)
> Thanks for releasing it along with your VOLT sources!


Yes  the font as it is represents a year's work. For the last two years 
- whenever I can find some time - I have been working on an update which 
supports many more combinations (though these additional combinations 
occur rarely and only in old texts).

When I'm finished I'd love to find someone to hint the font properly.

This font is already included in several Linux distributions and most 
people tell me they think it is nicer than any commercial Tibetan script 
font.  Compare e.g. with the "Microsoft Himalaya" Tibetan font included 
with Vista.

BTW Can someone fix it so the .png font sample appears with the font.

- Chris
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Re: [Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[Dave Crossland]

2008/7/24 Nicolas Spalinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> I'd say it's also a question of agreeing on the policy.

AIUI, current OFLB policy is "what people contribute."

> I'd vote against unclear PD, pure GPL as options as it will cause future
> problems.

I'm happy for any free software font to be contributed to OFLB, and
then to make the OFLB UI highlight non-best-practice submissions, and
the "oflb font set" that Jon has talked about (that we would offer to
GNU/Linux distros) would only include the ones following best
practices. Broad input and narrow output, as the saying goes.

> And we really need to clarify the troubles with the current font
> exception for GPL-ed fonts too.

We do, but thats a separate issue.

> Also do we need to allow Vera-style licensing? MIT/X11/Expat? Some type of
> CC? Licensing proliferation is pretty bad.

These are all free; I think if we get people submitting fonts with
those licenses, we will have a point of contact to start a discussion
with them about following best practices. If we don't accept their
submissions, we might never get that discussion going.

> BTW, impressive work on the Jomolhari font :-)

+1! :-)

> We could use the server I host the planet on for testing.

That's a great idea :-)

> BTW the wiki seems to be hit by spam again:
> http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

Noted...

Dave
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Re: [Openfontlibrary] Planet open fonts now set up

[Nicolas Spalinger]

[...]


So I've now dropped the undertype feeds (and the dejavu svn feeds as Ben
Laenen also preferred real blog posts to be more prominent on the
planet) and I'll try to come up with something better over the next few
weeks. (I've left in the Debian fonts team commits for now but they also
need work).


OK, there's now a "satellite" (or subplanet) tracking some VCS commits 
on a separate page but with a link from the main planet: 
http://planet.open-fonts.org/vcs/


Seems like this thing is starting to do its job nicely...
Let me know what you think.

Anybody has more recommended feeds?
Things you would like to be added or done differently?

Bye,

--
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http://pkg-fonts.alioth.debian.org/
https://launchpad.net/people/fonts





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Re: [Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[Nicolas Spalinger]

Dave Crossland wrote:

2008/7/24 Christopher Fynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

Is there any reason why an option for GPL + Font Exception or even for
GPL is not included?


Lack of developer time.


I'd say it's also a question of agreeing on the policy.

I'd vote against unclear PD, pure GPL as options as it will cause future 
problems. And we really need to clarify the troubles with the current 
font exception for GPL-ed fonts too.
Also do we need to allow Vera-style licensing? MIT/X11/Expat? Some type 
of CC? Licensing proliferation is pretty bad.



BTW, impressive work on the Jomolhari font :-)
Thanks for releasing it along with your VOLT sources!
(You may want to double-check the description metadata field as it 
refers to GPL, which is apparently not what you intended).




I have been waiting for ccHost 5 to be released; its currently in beta
and the design is complete but it still has many bugs.

We also have a problem giving volunteers access to the server; someone
ought to write a tutorial for how anyone can set up a staging server
to do development with so they can submit patches to the developers
with accounts (myself, Jon Philips, Alexandre Prokoudine, I think -
not sure who else :-)


I have ported the OFL integration code to work with the current svn 
trunk of cchost. But yes there still things the devs need to finish 
before releasing v5. Also the font preview issue is the major blocker.


We could use the server I host the planet on for testing.

BTW the wiki seems to be hit by spam again:
http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges


--
Nicolas Spalinger
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http://pkg-fonts.alioth.debian.org/
https://launchpad.net/people/fonts





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Re: [Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[Dave Crossland]

2008/7/24 Christopher Fynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> Is there any reason why an option for GPL + Font Exception or even for
> GPL is not included?

Lack of developer time.

I have been waiting for ccHost 5 to be released; its currently in beta
and the design is complete but it still has many bugs.

We also have a problem giving volunteers access to the server; someone
ought to write a tutorial for how anyone can set up a staging server
to do development with so they can submit patches to the developers
with accounts (myself, Jon Philips, Alexandre Prokoudine, I think -
not sure who else :-)

-- 
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Dave
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[Openfontlibrary] GPL with Font Exception?

[Christopher Fynn]

I see some fonts in the Open Font Library are licensed under GPL
- yet in the Submit Font form the only two options available are OFL and 
PD.

Is there any reason why an option for GPL + Font Exception or even for 
GPL is not included? - Particularly as the site already contains GPL'd 
fonts.

- Chris


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Re: [Openfontlibrary] [Fwd: the OPN Malatashito font and the Open Font Library]

[Dave Crossland]

2008/7/24 Nicu Buculei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Nicu Buculei wrote:
>> Somebody pointed me in an IRC channel about this font not being free.
>
> And I received the following answer:

Thanks for doing this Nicu!

> "Thank you for your email.  I might release them as OFL in the future,
> but for now I would like to keep them free only for non-commercial use.
>  So I guess they should be taken down then.
>
> But if my account still remains on the site, I would like to possibly
> release some of my other fonts as OFL in the near future."

Great! :-)
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Re: [Openfontlibrary] FontEmbedding.com

[Dave Crossland]

2008/7/24 Christopher Fynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
>
 They say that EOT will be a W3C specification.
>>> 
>> Microsoft can submit whatever they want to the W3C, that doesn't mean
>> it WILL become a specification.
>
> Adobe are supporting this as well - and from what I've heard it has
> fairly widespread support.

Depends who you ask, and what you mean by 'support.' Tom Phinney's
informal poll asked mainly proprietary-minded type designers and web
designers, and he dismissed the "disproportionally small but vocal"
critics. And although Adobe and Microsoft are pushing this behind the
scenes, there has been no favorable commentary on the [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailing list. Web developers understand why DRM is a plague on all our
houses, at least.

And the comments in the blog at FontEmbedding.com is also full of
unfavorable remarks.

> I'm wondering how restrictive or enforceable this is?

IANAL, and I'm not in a country with this stuff. But I've heard
Bitstream people voice an expectation for their pound of flesh.

> So far they don't seem
> to have taken any successful action to stop EOT & Microsoft's WEFT which has
> already been around for ten years

Microsoft and Bitstream almost certainly have a blanket patent cross
licensing deal. The only other developer to use the ideas monopolised
by their patents was Netscape, who also licensed the patent - and
Bitstream's implementation too, in fact.

> Meanwhile
> Bitstream seem have stopped pushing their PFR for web font embedding  (which
> anyway did not work complex scripts) - and seem to be concentrating on it's
> use in Digital Video and embedded devices.

Since web-browsers are a core part of Digital Video and embedded
devices, this is foreboding.

> seem to imply that this gets round the original font license.

All that is historic IMO: The proprietary beasts are so archaic, when
Bitstream was doing this 15 years ago they didn't want it done at all,
and Bitstream had to work around them.

> Of course Microsoft, Monotype, & Adobe also have number of patents of their
> own related to font embedding .

These are covered by the W3C's patent release, which is friendly to
free software.

Cheers,
Dave
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Re: [Openfontlibrary] [Fwd: the OPN Malatashito font and the Open Font Library]

[Nicu Buculei]

Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Somebody pointed me in an IRC channel about this font not being free.

And I received the following answer:

"Thank you for your email.  I might release them as OFL in the future, 
but for now I would like to keep them free only for non-commercial use. 
  So I guess they should be taken down then.

But if my account still remains on the site, I would like to possibly 
release some of my other fonts as OFL in the near future."


>  Original Message 
> Subject: the OPN Malatashito font and the Open Font Library
> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:35:42 +0300
> From: Nicu Buculei <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Hi Omar,
> 
> I am one of the admins at the Open Font Library, where it seems you have
> uploaded a couple of fonts, OPN Malatashito and OPN Stun Filla Wenkay:
> http://openfontlibrary.org/media/files/Omar_the_Radwan/281
> http://openfontlibrary.org/media/files/Omar_the_Radwan/243
> 
> These are good looking fonts, but there is a licensing problem: you
> included a text file saying the fonts are free for non-commercial use
> ONLY, which is contrary to our site policy, we are collecting only free
> fonts, the non-commercial clause is a blocker.
> 
> At the upload time you had to make a choice about the license and select
> either OFL (Open Font License) or PD (Public Domain) and you selected OFL.
> 
> So my question is: do you want to release the fonts under the OFL or
> keep the non-commercial clause? In the second case, I am sorry to say
> but they can't be hosted on our website.
> 
> Until I receive an answer I unpublished the font (it is visible only by
> the submitter and the admins) so nobody will mistakenly download and use
> them.
> 
> Thank you for your attention.


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Re: [Openfontlibrary] FontEmbedding.com

[Christopher Fynn]

Dave Crossland wrote:

> 2008/7/23 Christopher Fynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>> These are the same people that released the report trashing free fonts

> They were shit-talking proprietary software redistributable at zero
> price - "freeware" - and all the problems they identify would be
> solvable if those fonts were not proprietary

Agreed.

>>> They say that EOT will be a W3C specification.
>> Microsoft's Embedded OpenType (.EOT) Font Format Submission Request to W3C:
>> 
> 
> Microsoft can submit whatever they want to the W3C, that doesn't mean
> it WILL become a specification.

Adobe are supporting this as well - and from what I've heard it has
fairly widespread support.

> Bitstream hold plenty of software patents on all this stuff, and they
> aren't involved in the W3C, so anyone who wants to implement anything
> like EOT is going to be screwed by them.

The main Bitstream Patents related to this seems to be 5,577,177 
"Apparatus and methods for creating and using portable fonts" which goes 
back to 1995 - I'm wondering how restrictive or enforceable this is? So 
far they don't seem to have taken any successful action to stop EOT & 
Microsoft's WEFT which has already been around for ten years. Why woud 
that change now? Meanwhile Bitstream seem have stopped pushing their PFR 
for web font embedding  (which anyway did not work complex scripts) - 
and seem to be concentrating on it's use in Digital Video and embedded 
devices.

Bitstream's  Own TrueDoc / PFR blurb
http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/truedoc/faqs.html
claims "TrueDoc works differently from font embedding" which sounds
like they are trying to claim what they do is *different* from EOT etc.

They also claim: "When recording characters, the TrueDoc recorder does 
not access the original font directly. In addition, TrueDoc does not 
copy or use any hinting information from the original font. TrueDoc's 
internal, automatic hinting process handles all hinting to guarantee 
exceptional quality on all devices." - and seem to imply that this gets 
round the original font license.

Of course Microsoft, Monotype, & Adobe also have number of patents of 
their own related to font embedding .

- chris



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