Hi there,
In response to a well-articulated request by a developer, Red Hat is hereby dual-licensing Overpass Fonts[1] under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (heretofore the license of the fonts) and the Apache License 2.0. This shall serve as a general public announcement.
- RF
Hi Richard and Tom!
On 6 December 2012 05:53, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
In response to a well-articulated request by a developer, Red Hat is hereby dual-licensing Overpass Fonts[1] under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (heretofore the license of the fonts) and the Apache License 2.0. This shall serve as a general public announcement.
Great news!
I see that the copyright notice says, "Copyright 2011 Red Hat, Inc., with Reserved Font Name OVERPASS."
Anyone serving the fonts as web fonts under the OFL will need additional permission to distribute it with the RFN because modifications are required in order to convert formats for wide browser compatibility, offer subsets to reduce latency, and so on.
The Apache license doesn't have such requirements.
Therefore I personally suggest removing the RFN notice.
If 'Overpass' is considered a valuable Red Hat trademark, I'd personally suggest declaring trademark notices alongside copyright notices for both licenses.
Personally I don't like Apache for fonts, so I wonder if you might explain about the thinking behind using both licenses.
Cheers Dave
On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 11:22:18AM +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
Hi Richard and Tom!
On 6 December 2012 05:53, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
In response to a well-articulated request by a developer, Red Hat is hereby dual-licensing Overpass Fonts[1] under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (heretofore the license of the fonts) and the Apache License 2.0. This shall serve as a general public announcement.
Great news!
I see that the copyright notice says, "Copyright 2011 Red Hat, Inc., with Reserved Font Name OVERPASS."
Anyone serving the fonts as web fonts under the OFL will need additional permission to distribute it with the RFN because modifications are required in order to convert formats for wide browser compatibility, offer subsets to reduce latency, and so on.
The Apache license doesn't have such requirements. Therefore I personally suggest removing the RFN notice.
If 'Overpass' is considered a valuable Red Hat trademark, I'd personally suggest declaring trademark notices alongside copyright notices for both licenses.
That may make good sense; let me think about this.
Essentially I think you are saying that the 'Reserved Font Name' feature of the SIL OFL is a flaw in practice.
Personally I don't like Apache for fonts, so I wonder if you might explain about the thinking behind using both licenses.
The reason to continue using SIL OFL is, well, because we've been using it (before I joined Red Hat nearly 5 years ago Fedora had already declared OFL its recommended font license). And indeed we rejoiced in the opportunity to use it in certain cases, Lohit fonts and Liberation Fonts 2.0. The latter license change was something I personally regarded as a 'liberation', if you will. It is too soon to question the legitimacy of such rejoicing. However:
The developer in question, not being previously familiar with the SIL OFL, read it and stumbled across the "you may not sell these fonts by themselves" clause. He realized the awful truth (although he didn't put it this way): there is no way to reconcile SIL OFL being "free" and the principle, established by such matters as SunRPC, that a "you may not sell this material in isolation" clause is nonfree for a software license, unless you either come to an understanding that the free software world applies a double standard when it comes to fonts vs. software, or you adopt the FSF's "hello world" conceptual trick, which I am not entirely comfortable with given that we don't seem to have any clear understanding that SIL or the body of SIL licensors would see the 'hello world' trick as compliant with the OFL.
Given that realizations of this problem represent an important step forward in free culture licensing, and given Red Hat's own encouragement of standardization on SIL OFL (which itself has had good justifications), and given that Red Hat continues to have copyright control over Overpass fonts, it follows that the right thing to do is to make these fonts additionally availabe under a license that is universally accepted as a free software license.
The Apache License 2.0 was picked in particular because I've seen it used for some fonts and the developer in question initially had some concerns (though not relevant IMO) about the appearance of GPLv3 incompatibility of SIL OFL; it is beyond dispute that the Apache License 2.0 is GPLv3-compatible.
- RF
On 6 December 2012 23:42, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 11:22:18AM +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
Hi Richard and Tom!
On 6 December 2012 05:53, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
In response to a well-articulated request by a developer, Red Hat is hereby dual-licensing Overpass Fonts[1] under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (heretofore the license of the fonts) and the Apache License 2.0. This shall serve as a general public announcement.
Great news!
I see that the copyright notice says, "Copyright 2011 Red Hat, Inc., with Reserved Font Name OVERPASS."
Anyone serving the fonts as web fonts under the OFL will need additional permission to distribute it with the RFN because modifications are required in order to convert formats for wide browser compatibility, offer subsets to reduce latency, and so on.
The Apache license doesn't have such requirements. Therefore I personally suggest removing the RFN notice.
If 'Overpass' is considered a valuable Red Hat trademark, I'd personally suggest declaring trademark notices alongside copyright notices for both licenses.
That may make good sense; let me think about this.
Essentially I think you are saying that the 'Reserved Font Name' feature of the SIL OFL is a flaw in practice.
Personally I don't like Apache for fonts, so I wonder if you might explain about the thinking behind using both licenses.
The reason to continue using SIL OFL is, well, because we've been using it (before I joined Red Hat nearly 5 years ago Fedora had already declared OFL its recommended font license). And indeed we rejoiced in the opportunity to use it in certain cases, Lohit fonts and Liberation Fonts 2.0. The latter license change was something I personally regarded as a 'liberation', if you will. It is too soon to question the legitimacy of such rejoicing. However:
The developer in question, not being previously familiar with the SIL OFL, read it and stumbled across the "you may not sell these fonts by themselves" clause. He realized the awful truth (although he didn't put it this way): there is no way to reconcile SIL OFL being "free" and the principle, established by such matters as SunRPC, that a "you may not sell this material in isolation" clause is nonfree for a software license, unless you either come to an understanding that the free software world applies a double standard when it comes to fonts vs. software, or you adopt the FSF's "hello world" conceptual trick, which I am not entirely comfortable with given that we don't seem to have any clear understanding that SIL or the body of SIL licensors would see the 'hello world' trick as compliant with the OFL.
Given that realizations of this problem represent an important step forward in free culture licensing, and given Red Hat's own encouragement of standardization on SIL OFL (which itself has had good justifications), and given that Red Hat continues to have copyright control over Overpass fonts, it follows that the right thing to do is to make these fonts additionally availabe under a license that is universally accepted as a free software license.
Nice explanation Richard.
Lohit is actively used as a Web fonts in some of the projects. Point raised by Dave is valid one that Web fonts need reproducing/regenerating fonts in other than .ttf format and RFN requirement make unusable in such case. So should Lohit upstream consider dropping RFN (reserve font name) requirement and add it in COPYRIGHT file as suggested by Dave?
ticket for same is already available https://fedorahosted.org/lohit/ticket/8
Regards, Pravin Satpute
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 12:52:06PM +0530, pravin.d.s@gmail.com wrote:
Lohit is actively used as a Web fonts in some of the projects. Point raised by Dave is valid one that Web fonts need reproducing/regenerating fonts in other than .ttf format and RFN requirement make unusable in such case. So should Lohit upstream consider dropping RFN (reserve font name) requirement and add it in COPYRIGHT file as suggested by Dave?
I'm leaning towards this view, but just need a few more days to think about it. :)
- RF
On 11 December 2012 12:21, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 12:52:06PM +0530, pravin.d.s@gmail.com wrote:
Lohit is actively used as a Web fonts in some of the projects. Point
raised by
Dave is valid one that Web fonts need reproducing/regenerating fonts in
other
than .ttf format and RFN requirement make unusable in such case. So
should
Lohit upstream consider dropping RFN (reserve font name) requirement and
add it
in COPYRIGHT file as suggested by Dave?
I'm leaning towards this view, but just need a few more days to think about it. :)
No props. Can wait for this definitely.
Thanks, Pravin Satpute
On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 01:31:49PM +0530, pravin.d.s@gmail.com wrote:
On 11 December 2012 12:21, Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 12:52:06PM +0530, pravin.d.s@gmail.com wrote: > > Lohit is actively used as a Web fonts in some of the projects. Point raised by > Dave is valid one that Web fonts need reproducing/regenerating fonts in other > than .ttf format and RFN requirement make unusable in such case. So should > Lohit upstream consider dropping RFN (reserve font name) requirement and add it > in COPYRIGHT file as suggested by Dave?
I agree with this proposal.
Therefore, it seems to me, we can and should drop the Reserved Font Name from Lohit Fonts, Liberation Fonts 2.0, and Overpass Fonts.
I do not consider it necessary to add any trademark notices at this time.
- Richard
I see that the copyright notice says, "Copyright 2011 Red Hat, Inc., with Reserved Font Name OVERPASS."
Anyone serving the fonts as web fonts under the OFL will need additional permission to distribute it with the RFN because modifications are required in order to convert formats for wide browser compatibility, offer subsets to reduce latency, and so on.
My time is limited but I feel I need to contribute to this thread: I personally think this is a blanket statement which minimizes the complexity of the issues and conveniently ignores a lot of the thinking behind the Reserved Font Names features which is an integral part of the OFL model. This topic deserve more attention and careful analysis.
Consider some of the following goals that designers have:
- Avoiding collisions - it greatly reduces the likelihood that a Modified Version would get confused with the Original Version, whether by an end user, someone bundling the font into a separate app or collection, or an application attempting to render a document that specifies a particular font. - Protecting authors - it requires any font that bears the RFNs to retain the functionality and quality of the Original Version which protects the author's reputation - Minimizing support - it enables authors to adequately support their fonts without the burden of troubleshooting fonts bearing the same name that might have been poorly modified. - Encouraging derivatives - it encourages separately-named branches to exist and be properly identified so that new, interesting enhancements can get reviewed and eventually merged back into the main project.
It's quite understandable that the perspective of a commercial webfont hosting service is that they want full control, with a plentiful supply of fonts but whithout having to deal with the designer's requirements too much...
Please don't assume this perspective is the one everyone shares :-D
I suspect many designers and copyright holders probably think differently and the RFN mechanism exists to give them more choice and control. It's one of their bargaining advantages.
The RFN mechanism is what provides designers with enough trust to relinquish modification rights to their creation and to allow other modified versions to exist as long as they don't thread upon the master, the canonical version, the original. Getting rid of that trust is no easy matter.
Should speed-related optimizations or subsetting really come at the price of a big number of derivative fonts colliding with the canonical version and increasing the support burden of the authors and sponsoring organisation?
How would designers feel when they receive complaints that plenty of broken webfonts called Overpass or Lohit $something appear on website but don't work as expected?
One person's convenience is another person's loss of value.
IMHO the option of sending those improvements back to master, back to the original author instead of just forking them for webfonts is a solution that should not be ignored. (I thought Fedora has the brilliant approach of upstream first ?)
Also some target formats have inherent limitations that do not capture the full coverage and smart behaviours of the original font and so even with the best intentions it creates a derivative that can't be on par with the original (.i.e SVG).
I think that having a lot of fonts which are "similar but not quite entirely unlike" the original is rather #disturbing.
The Apache license doesn't have such requirements. Therefore I personally suggest removing the RFN notice.
If 'Overpass' is considered a valuable Red Hat trademark, I'd personally suggest declaring trademark notices alongside copyright notices for both licenses.
That may make good sense; let me think about this.
I'd recommend the perspective of designers are also taken into account in this discussion and not just the perspective of hosting services.
Looking at the Overpass git repository, I notice that various fonts in webfont formats "optimized" by fontsquirrel are currently stored in a Webfonts/ folder. Having the original author prepare the webfonts format directly to control how they are optimized without going through such separate service is probably a much better idea.
Beyond what such "optimisation" does to the original font, there are also changes to the metadata done to mangle the font name so that the font is uninstallable and adds this restriction notice: "This is a protected webfont and is intended for CSS @font-face use ONLY. Reverse engineering this font is strictly prohibited."
This restriction goes against the spirit and purpose of open fonts (in breach of the OFL's mild copyleft) and is quite revealling of a process that is geared towards restricted fonts that are probably optimized against their original author's desires.
IMHO probably not what the font author and Redhat as a sponsor of such an open font have in mind...
Not reserving any names is certainly an option thas is built into the OFL but you have to be fully aware of the advantages you are choosing to give up and the consequences this will have.
Essentially I think you are saying that the 'Reserved Font Name' feature of the SIL OFL is a flaw in practice.
AFAICT it seems Dave Crossland's position on this has fluctuated. From the article about the OFL's features in Libre Graphics Magazine 1.4 to the commissioning policies of Google Web Fonts...
SIL is currently writing a paper on the topic of Reserved Font Names and the webfont optimization processes and we intend to have a future update of the OFL FAQ reflect that.
Personally I don't like Apache for fonts, so I wonder if you might explain about the thinking behind using both licenses.
The reason to continue using SIL OFL is, well, because we've been using it (before I joined Red Hat nearly 5 years ago Fedora had already declared OFL its recommended font license). And indeed we rejoiced in the opportunity to use it in certain cases, Lohit fonts and Liberation Fonts 2.0. The latter license change was something I personally regarded as a 'liberation', if you will. It is too soon to question the legitimacy of such rejoicing. However:
The developer in question, not being previously familiar with the SIL OFL, read it and stumbled across the "you may not sell these fonts by themselves" clause. He realized the awful truth (although he didn't put it this way): there is no way to reconcile SIL OFL being "free" and the principle, established by such matters as SunRPC, that a "you may not sell this material in isolation" clause is nonfree for a software license, unless you either come to an understanding that the free software world applies a double standard when it comes to fonts vs. software, or you adopt the FSF's "hello world" conceptual trick, which I am not entirely comfortable with given that we don't seem to have any clear understanding that SIL or the body of SIL licensors would see the 'hello world' trick as compliant with the OFL.
Reading through the OFL FAQ (along with previous public discussion on the topic) should help make it clear that what can be seen as the OFL "hello world" trick is actually a feature of the license and not a bug. We have been in discussion with the FSF on this and we agree with their views on this and how they present the license on their list of approved licenses. The not-selling-by-itself clause is social signalling that you can easily circumvent but that makes a useful point to people who receive the bundle while still being compliant with FSF values and the OSD.
I haven't seen any Libre Software projects reject Vera/Dejavu/etc because of such a clause. Why should it be different now?
BTW, I notice that Cantarell still has discrepancies in its licensing metadata. (pointed out earlier http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/fonts/2010-November/001276.html)
The usual disclaimers: TINLA, IANAL
On 12-12-12 05:43 AM, Nicolas Spalinger wrote:
Consider some of the following goals that designers have:
- Avoiding collisions - it greatly reduces the likelihood that a Modified Version would get confused with the Original Version, whether by an end user, someone bundling the font into a separate app or collection, or an application attempting to render a document that specifies a particular font.
- Protecting authors - it requires any font that bears the RFNs to retain the functionality and quality of the Original Version which protects the author's reputation
- Minimizing support - it enables authors to adequately support their fonts without the burden of troubleshooting fonts bearing the same name that might have been poorly modified.
- Encouraging derivatives - it encourages separately-named branches to exist and be properly identified so that new, interesting enhancements can get reviewed and eventually merged back into the main project.
Nicolas,
Every single reason you listed equally applies to software. It's been a source of unlimited grief for me that Ubuntu patches gnome-terminal in ways that I wouldn't approve. So, it looks like you are indeed suggesting that the Free Software world should take a double standard approach when defining free fonts vs free software.
behdad
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:43:24AM +0100, Nicolas Spalinger wrote:
[...]
I think that having a lot of fonts which are "similar but not quite entirely unlike" the original is rather #disturbing.
Possibly. But why do you need copyright law to fix this problem? That was, I thought, part of what Dave was saying (unless I read too much into it), that trademark law gives you sufficient 'protection'. [...]
If 'Overpass' is considered a valuable Red Hat trademark, I'd personally suggest declaring trademark notices alongside copyright notices for both licenses.
That may make good sense; let me think about this.
I'd recommend the perspective of designers are also taken into account in this discussion and not just the perspective of hosting services.
Just to be clear, I'm not taking some general policy stance against use of the 'Reserved Font Name'.
Not reserving any names is certainly an option thas is built into the OFL but you have to be fully aware of the advantages you are choosing to give up and the consequences this will have.
My view on this is, if the maintainer of the fonts thinks it might be a good idea not to use the 'Reserved Font Name' mechanism, and the reasons seem to be valid on their face, let's go ahead and do that. If the world comes to an end as a result I will admit that I was wrong. :)
[...]
Reading through the OFL FAQ (along with previous public discussion on the topic) should help make it clear that what can be seen as the OFL "hello world" trick is actually a feature of the license and not a bug.
Okay, that is reassuring. However, for the first time since becoming aware of the SIL OFL I have confirmation that this provision:
Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.
is meant to be completely toothless, purely a form of "social signalling". I do not understand what the point of such signalling is, because you are actually signalling that we don't have to take the signalling seriously. The signal is broken.
I haven't seen any Libre Software projects reject Vera/Dejavu/etc because of such a clause. Why should it be different now?
As Dave himself correctly pointed out some time ago, it's because free software developers have had a tacit double standard when it comes to fonts. Fonts are held to a lower standard of what 'freeness' or 'openness' means. That doesn't bother me so much as the nearly universal failure of anyone to acknowledge it.
- RF
-
Behdad Esfahbod -
Dave Crossland -
Nicolas Spalinger -
pravin.d.s＠gmail.com -
Richard Fontana