Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
> "AP" == Alexander Ploumistoswrites: AP> However, in his last message, he left open the possibility of AP> negotiating a different license for/with Fedora Project, but I don't AP> feel I am the right person to engage in any further negotiations AP> with him. This really should get to le...@lists.fedoraproject.org, as there are some folks on there who are certainly the right people to have that discussion but who probably don't follow this list closely enough to guarantee that they've read your message. Also, I would have to think that a license specifically for the Fedora project would still have to be considered non-free because anyone needs to be able to take what they get from us and use/modify/redistribute it freely. Finally, it would be nice to know what is special about these specific fonts. Is there functionality (glyph coverage, etc.) which would be lost if we no longer had them? I'm sure it would be good for folks to know just how important it would be to not lose these fonts. If they are important to have, then it would probably be a good idea to just maintain a fork somewhere. - J< ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
Yesterday evening George Douros uploaded updated versions of almost every font I maintain, as well as the new "license": http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/License.pdf As you can see, there is no ambiguity, the text - despite its shortcomings - presents a number of obstacles to the inclusion of the fonts in Fedora (or pretty much any other linux distribution). I contacted him about adopting the OFL license, some other compatible license, dual-licensing, but he feels quite strongly about the non-commercial clause and apparently he is quite content with the scribble he's put together. His approach to the whole issue is rather sentimental (understandable up to a certain point) and the discussion quickly became heated, despite my efforts to tone things down and focus objectively on the issue. However, in his last message, he left open the possibility of negotiating a different license for/with Fedora Project, but I don't feel I am the right person to engage in any further negotiations with him. I thought about orphaning the packages, but as we discussed, there isn't any harm in letting them linger. If anybody else wants to take over, feel free to do so. ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 10:24 AM, Nicolas Mailhotwrote: > Le 2018-04-08 10:11, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek a écrit : >>> >>> Nothing is set in stone yet, but some >>> time soon he is going to upload a whole new license text (hopefully in >>> English), probably something custom-made. > > > Try to point it to the OFL and its FAQ, it has been created exactly for this > purpose and is Fedora-compatible. Try to explain him that unless he is ready > to pay a lot of money to lawyers drafting a licensing text that has the > expected effect in all the jurisdictions his web site can reach is quite > difficult. I take it you are referring to this: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web I understand and agree with all your points. From what he's let on, the license has been drafted, he just hasn't found the time to prepare everything else. When he does upload all the new stuff, I will check with Fedora legal if there is any ambiguity and if the license is indeed incompatible, I will bring up dual licensing and point him to the SIL OFL. ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
Le 2018-04-08 10:11, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek a écrit : Nothing is set in stone yet, but some time soon he is going to upload a whole new license text (hopefully in English), probably something custom-made. Try to point it to the OFL and its FAQ, it has been created exactly for this purpose and is Fedora-compatible. Try to explain him that unless he is ready to pay a lot of money to lawyers drafting a licensing text that has the expected effect in all the jurisdictions his web site can reach is quite difficult. Along with the fonts, there will probably be some sort of software, hence its mention. Apparently he is not hostile to linux distros redistributing his fonts, but he took issue when I pointed him to our licensing pages and he did call redistributors and font web sites "license pushers" A distribution is a license pusher. However, try to assemble any non-trivial IT system and you’ll see license pushing is not a piece of cake. Distributions are doing license pushing for the masses otherwise no one but the GAFAM and IBM/HP/Oracle could afford to assemble IT systems (and those usually do not care about small markets like Greece or the fonts of George Douros). If he wants his fonts to reach history students and researchers he will have to pass by some form of license pushing. There’s no way any form of (micro) payment can work out when any system is composed of tens of thousands of components that continuously change. - Finally, if everything fails, is there a suitable and equivalent replacement for Symbola? I suspect Noto will eventually cover all the codepoints but being entirely dependent on the GAFAM is a terrible idea mid term. We need people like George Douros and they need entities like us or it will eventually end up in a new lockdown era like in the bad 2000 MS-only years. Regards, -- Nicolas Mailhot ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
Le 2018-04-08 14:55, Alexander Ploumistos a écrit : My concern is if he can retroactively apply the new license to the older versions of the fonts. Is this a valid concern or is it not how licensing works? Legally, he can’t. We can ship existing fonts forever, however having an hostile upstream and no one to work on fixes is not a good long-term plan Regards, -- Nicolas Mailhot ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
On Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 11:58:29PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:30 PM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek >wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 02:55:49PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: > >> My concern is if he can retroactively apply the new license to the > >> older versions of the fonts. Is this a valid concern or is it not how > >> licensing works? > > > > In general, a license may contain termination clauses, based on time or > > whatever other conditions. But this particular "license" that you quoted > > in your original mail doesn't contain anything like this, so imo it > > is valid forever. > > I can only hope upstream feels the same way about it. Upstream's feelings don't decide here. What really counts in the interpretation by law, which in practice means interpretation by our legal team. Zbyszek ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:30 PM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmekwrote: > On Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 02:55:49PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: >> My concern is if he can retroactively apply the new license to the >> older versions of the fonts. Is this a valid concern or is it not how >> licensing works? > > In general, a license may contain termination clauses, based on time or > whatever other conditions. But this particular "license" that you quoted > in your original mail doesn't contain anything like this, so imo it > is valid forever. I can only hope upstream feels the same way about it. Thank you for the insights Zbigniew. ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
On Sun, Apr 08, 2018 at 02:55:49PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: > Hi Zbigniew, > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek >wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 07, 2018 at 10:44:41PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: > >> - If it is indeed incompatible, would trying to convince him to adopt > >> a dual license scheme be the best course of action? > > You know this probably better. Have you tried explaining why we have > > the requirements we have, to preserve the freedom to use packages, etc? > > I have and I also have stressed the difference between us and a > for-profit font repository, but I think I will need to revisit the > topic… > > >> - If the new license prohibits us from distributing the fonts, do we > >> need to drop the packages from Fedora or can we continue to use their > >> current versions? > > We can continue to use them. With fonts the "degradation" over time is > > small (mostly we'd be missing new additions), so it should be OK to > > have the frozen version for many years. > > My concern is if he can retroactively apply the new license to the > older versions of the fonts. Is this a valid concern or is it not how > licensing works? In general, a license may contain termination clauses, based on time or whatever other conditions. But this particular "license" that you quoted in your original mail doesn't contain anything like this, so imo it is valid forever. Zbyszek ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
Hi Zbigniew, On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmekwrote: > On Sat, Apr 07, 2018 at 10:44:41PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: >> - If it is indeed incompatible, would trying to convince him to adopt >> a dual license scheme be the best course of action? > You know this probably better. Have you tried explaining why we have > the requirements we have, to preserve the freedom to use packages, etc? I have and I also have stressed the difference between us and a for-profit font repository, but I think I will need to revisit the topic… >> - If the new license prohibits us from distributing the fonts, do we >> need to drop the packages from Fedora or can we continue to use their >> current versions? > We can continue to use them. With fonts the "degradation" over time is > small (mostly we'd be missing new additions), so it should be OK to > have the frozen version for many years. My concern is if he can retroactively apply the new license to the older versions of the fonts. Is this a valid concern or is it not how licensing works? Regards Alex ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
Re: Upcoming gdouros-*-fonts license change and subsequent complications
On Sat, Apr 07, 2018 at 10:44:41PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote: > Hello all, > > I doubt most of you know or care about George Douros' family of fonts, > as almost all of them are quite niche. However, there is one font in > particular, Symbola, that a number of users and packagers care for, > since it follows closely all the Unicode additions and improvements. > > A few of weeks ago, the creator of the fonts took down his web page > and along with a message about the site being under reconstruction, > there is now this: > "Software on this site is free strictly for personal, non-commercial use." > > In the past, in lieu of a license, he had this piece of text: > "Fonts and documents in this site are not pieces of property or > merchandise items; they carry no trademark, copyright, license or > other market tags; they are free for any use." > > The previous wording essentially put the fonts in the Public Domain - > perfectly acceptable for inclusion in Fedora. > > That change raised some red flags, so I contacted him about it and we > exchanged a couple of messages. Nothing is set in stone yet, but some > time soon he is going to upload a whole new license text (hopefully in > English), probably something custom-made. Along with the fonts, there > will probably be some sort of software, hence its mention. Apparently > he is not hostile to linux distros redistributing his fonts, but he > took issue when I pointed him to our licensing pages and he did call > redistributors and font web sites "license pushers" (at times he is a > bit temperamental like that). I asked him if the new license will > cover redistribution in a distro context specifically, but he has not > replied yet (I suspect he is away on Easter holidays). > > With all that in mind and while I wait for the license text, I have a > few questions: > > - Am I right to assume that "free strictly for personal, > non-commercial use" is incompatible with our guidelines? Yes. Any restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with general purpose distributions. > - If it is indeed incompatible, would trying to convince him to adopt > a dual license scheme be the best course of action? You know this probably better. Have you tried explaining why we have the requirements we have, to preserve the freedom to use packages, etc? > - If the new license prohibits us from distributing the fonts, do we > need to drop the packages from Fedora or can we continue to use their > current versions? We can continue to use them. With fonts the "degradation" over time is small (mostly we'd be missing new additions), so it should be OK to have the frozen version for many years. > - Finally, if everything fails, is there a suitable and equivalent > replacement for Symbola? Zbyszek ___ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org