7:08 a.m.
I maintain the easyrpg-player package [0]. Recently, it had a v0.7.0 release [1]. As it
often happens, this release added some new dependencies.
One of those is the "ttyp0" font [2], which uses its own, custom license.
Reading through, it seems to me that it's basically MIT with one extra clause:
If the design of any glyphs in the fonts that are contained in the
Software or generated during the installation process is modified
or if additional glyphs are added to the fonts, the fonts
must be renamed. The new names may not contain the word "UW",
irrespective of capitalisation; the new names may contain the word
"ttyp0", irrespective of capitalisation, only if preceded by a
foundry name different from "UW".
I'm posting here because I'd like to confirm that the license is OK with Fedora.
A.FI.
[0] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/easyrpg-player
[1] https://github.com/EasyRPG/Player/releases/tag/0.7.0
[2] https://people.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~uwe/misc/uw-ttyp0/
10:45 a.m.
On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 8:10 AM Artur Frenszek-Iwicki
<suve(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
I'm posting here because I'd like to confirm that the license is OK with Fedora.
I have added this to the list[1] of Good Font licenses. You can use
"MIT" as the identifier, as it's now on the list of MIT variants[2].
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses_4
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#ttyp0_variant
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
10:53 a.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 11:48 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 8:10 AM Artur Frenszek-Iwicki
<suve(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
> I'm posting here because I'd like to confirm that the license is OK with
Fedora.
>
I have added this to the list[1] of Good Font licenses. You can use
"MIT" as the identifier, as it's now on the list of MIT variants[2].
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses_4
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#ttyp0_variant
Sorry, I meant to reply to this earlier.
I am not sure if this should be acceptable for Fedora. My concern is
that the "UW" naming prohibition is unreasonably restrictive. Does
anyone have thoughts on this?
Richard
10:59 a.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 11:53 AM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
I am not sure if this should be acceptable for Fedora. My concern is
that the "UW" naming prohibition is unreasonably restrictive. Does
anyone have thoughts on this?
I read it as being similar to section 6 of ASL 2.0:
6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the
trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as
required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and
reproducing the content of the NOTICE file.
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
11:16 a.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 11:59 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 11:53 AM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> I am not sure if this should be acceptable for Fedora. My concern is
> that the "UW" naming prohibition is unreasonably restrictive. Does
> anyone have thoughts on this?
>
I read it as being similar to section 6 of ASL 2.0:
> 6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade names,
trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for
reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the
content of the NOTICE file.
But this would be like the Apache License saying "derivative works
can't have the consecutive letters 'AP' in their name". I'm not sure
at what point such a restriction becomes problematic from a FLOSS
standpoint but for example if it were one letter, like "U", that would
obviously not be okay. Two letters doesn't seem too different.
The closest parallel I'm aware of might be the PHP license, which
Fedora (following the FSF's view) treats as free but GPL-incompatible.
The main reason for the GPL incompatibility, I believe, is this naming
restriction:
"Products derived from this software may not be called "PHP", nor may
"PHP" appear in their name, without prior written permission from
group(a)php.net. You may indicate that your software works in
conjunction with PHP by saying "Foo for PHP" instead of calling it
"PHP Foo" or "phpfoo"".
Maybe that's the right call, as we've been assuming, but I wonder if a
two-letter sequence restriction goes too far.
It could be that the traditional view has been that any arbitrarily
restrictive renaming provision is okay from a libre standpoint. I'm
not sure why that should be correct though.
Richard
11:48 a.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 12:16 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
But this would be like the Apache License saying "derivative works
can't have the consecutive letters 'AP' in their name".
I disagree. First "uw" is how the foundry is identified. The Apache
Software Foundation doesn't use "AP" to identify itself, as far as
I've seen. Second, the word "word" is meaningful here. If the
University of Washington, as an example, used "UWash-ttyp0" as the
name, that wouldn't violate the restriction. In other words, it's not
that the letters u and w appear consecutively, but they're used as a
word.
It could be that the traditional view has been that any arbitrarily
restrictive renaming provision is okay from a libre standpoint. I'm
not sure why that should be correct though.
I'm not sure this is a well-explored area, but I think authors have a
fundamental right to disclaim association with derivative works. Just
as a license can require attribution, we should be able to require
dis-attribution (for lack of a better term). So I'm inclined to accept
most "you can make derivatives so long as you don't try to make it
sound like it's from or endorsed by me" scenarios. Where I'd draw the
line is more arbitrary restrictions. Like if GNOME had a license that
restricted calling a derivative work "dwarf" because Merriam-Webster
says they're synonyms. But saying "you can't call it
'GNOME-ish'"
would be acceptable because it uses the word "GNOME".
I'm not entirely sure that one-letter words are automatically out of
bounds. I think there's some room for context. Like if I make a font
called "c-font" that's part of a larger ecosystem of "c-*"
packages, I
think it's reasonable to say "you can't use 'c' alone in your
derivative work" ("bc" would be fine, but "remade-c"
wouldn't). On the
other hand, if "c-font" is the only "c-" name package, then I agree
that it's arbitrarily restrictive.
I hope this makes sense. It's a philosophy I've not hitherto given a
lot of explicit thought, so the explanation is probably a bit rough.
Maybe it'll be a conference proposal at some point?
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
12:51 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 12:48 PM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 12:16 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> But this would be like the Apache License saying "derivative works
> can't have the consecutive letters 'AP' in their name".
I disagree. First "uw" is how the foundry is identified. The Apache
Software Foundation doesn't use "AP" to identify itself, as far as
I've seen. Second, the word "word" is meaningful here. If the
University of Washington, as an example, used "UWash-ttyp0" as the
name, that wouldn't violate the restriction. In other words, it's not
that the letters u and w appear consecutively, but they're used as a
word.
But that implies that a word can't contain another word, I think?
"UWash" for example I would argue contains a number of words ("ash",
"wash", "as", "a", for starters). Unless "word"
has a special
domain-specific meaning in the world of font foundry names (does it?)
it is not clear to me that this developer would agree that "UWash"
does not violate the restriction.
> It could be that the traditional view has been that any
arbitrarily
> restrictive renaming provision is okay from a libre standpoint. I'm
> not sure why that should be correct though.
>
I'm not sure this is a well-explored area, but I think authors have a
fundamental right to disclaim association with derivative works. Just
as a license can require attribution, we should be able to require
dis-attribution (for lack of a better term). So I'm inclined to accept
most "you can make derivatives so long as you don't try to make it
sound like it's from or endorsed by me" scenarios. Where I'd draw the
line is more arbitrary restrictions. Like if GNOME had a license that
restricted calling a derivative work "dwarf" because Merriam-Webster
says they're synonyms. But saying "you can't call it
'GNOME-ish'"
would be acceptable because it uses the word "GNOME".
I'm not entirely sure that one-letter words are automatically out
of
bounds. I think there's some room for context. Like if I make a font
called "c-font" that's part of a larger ecosystem of "c-*"
packages, I
think it's reasonable to say "you can't use 'c' alone in your
derivative work" ("bc" would be fine, but "remade-c"
wouldn't). On the
other hand, if "c-font" is the only "c-" name package, then I agree
that it's arbitrarily restrictive.
So then maybe the question is what does "word" mean in this license?
If it has the narrow meaning that you are assuming, then maybe it is
okay. I'm not sure.
Worth noting also, in FLOSS historically some restrictions have been
tolerated in font licenses that weren't considered libre in software
licenses. This is probably one of the reasons why Fedora, for example,
has a separate category for acceptable font licenses. (Example: SIL
OFL vs. SunRPC.) But that's not especially for some sort of admirable
reason. It's because the community chose to "look the other way" out
of a strong desire to see sort-of-free-ish fonts get released, as Dave
Crossland explained to me a long time ago.
Richard
1:58 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 1:51 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
But that implies that a word can't contain another word, I think?
Now we're having fun!
"UWash" for example I would argue contains a number of
words ("ash",
"wash", "as", "a", for starters). Unless "word"
has a special
domain-specific meaning in the world of font foundry names (does it?)
it is not clear to me that this developer would agree that "UWash"
does not violate the restriction.
The most reasonable interpretation in my view is that the context
matters. So a word that is a variation of the form would be the same
"word" for the purposes of the licence. For example, "ash" and
"ashen". But if it's a string that happens to appear in another,
unrelated word, they are separate words. For example, "ash" and
"wash". In my original example, the fact that "UWash" is a name the
University of Washington uses supports the "it's not the same word"
argument. If I were to name a font "uwash-ttyp0", the "they're
separate words" case is weaker, but not a slam dunk.
I don't think you're arguing against the general concept (e.g. ASL 2.0
section 6), so the question is really "what's the minimum length?" If
General Electric released software under ASL 2.0 (replacing "Apache"
with "General Electric"), section 6 would preclude using "GE" in the
name of a derivative as that is a trademark of General Electric. So I
think we have to be okay with two-letter names if we're okay with ASL,
don't we? Similarly, calling a derivative work "stoneage", while it
contains the consecutive letters "g" and "e", seems obviously
acceptable under ASL 2.0 section 6.
I understand the philosophical issue with restricting renaming
generally. But I think if we go down that road, that represents a
significant policy shift from our past practice.
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
10:35 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 2:59 PM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 1:51 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> But that implies that a word can't contain another word, I think?
>
Now we're having fun!
> "UWash" for example I would argue contains a number of words
("ash",
> "wash", "as", "a", for starters). Unless
"word" has a special
> domain-specific meaning in the world of font foundry names (does it?)
> it is not clear to me that this developer would agree that "UWash"
> does not violate the restriction.
>
The most reasonable interpretation in my view is that the context
matters. So a word that is a variation of the form would be the same
"word" for the purposes of the licence. For example, "ash" and
"ashen". But if it's a string that happens to appear in another,
unrelated word, they are separate words. For example, "ash" and
"wash". In my original example, the fact that "UWash" is a name the
University of Washington uses supports the "it's not the same word"
argument. If I were to name a font "uwash-ttyp0", the "they're
separate words" case is weaker, but not a slam dunk.
I don't think you're arguing against the general concept (e.g. ASL 2.0
section 6), so the question is really "what's the minimum length?" If
General Electric released software under ASL 2.0 (replacing "Apache"
with "General Electric"), section 6 would preclude using "GE" in the
name of a derivative as that is a trademark of General Electric. So I
think we have to be okay with two-letter names if we're okay with ASL,
don't we? Similarly, calling a derivative work "stoneage", while it
contains the consecutive letters "g" and "e", seems obviously
acceptable under ASL 2.0 section 6.
I understand the philosophical issue with restricting renaming
generally. But I think if we go down that road, that represents a
significant policy shift from our past practice.
OK, well I withdraw my objections to treating this as an acceptable
Fedora license for fonts. I reserve the right to complain about a
similar future non-font-oriented license. :-)
Richard
10:52 a.m.
On 11/11/21 9:35 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 2:59 PM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com>
wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 1:51 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>> But that implies that a word can't contain another word, I think?
>>
> Now we're having fun!
>
>> "UWash" for example I would argue contains a number of words
("ash",
>> "wash", "as", "a", for starters). Unless
"word" has a special
>> domain-specific meaning in the world of font foundry names (does it?)
>> it is not clear to me that this developer would agree that "UWash"
>> does not violate the restriction.
>>
> The most reasonable interpretation in my view is that the context
> matters. So a word that is a variation of the form would be the same
> "word" for the purposes of the licence. For example, "ash" and
> "ashen". But if it's a string that happens to appear in another,
> unrelated word, they are separate words. For example, "ash" and
> "wash". In my original example, the fact that "UWash" is a name
the
> University of Washington uses supports the "it's not the same word"
> argument. If I were to name a font "uwash-ttyp0", the "they're
> separate words" case is weaker, but not a slam dunk.
>
> I don't think you're arguing against the general concept (e.g. ASL 2.0
> section 6), so the question is really "what's the minimum length?" If
> General Electric released software under ASL 2.0 (replacing "Apache"
> with "General Electric"), section 6 would preclude using "GE" in
the
> name of a derivative as that is a trademark of General Electric. So I
> think we have to be okay with two-letter names if we're okay with ASL,
> don't we? Similarly, calling a derivative work "stoneage", while it
> contains the consecutive letters "g" and "e", seems obviously
> acceptable under ASL 2.0 section 6.
>
> I understand the philosophical issue with restricting renaming
> generally. But I think if we go down that road, that represents a
> significant policy shift from our past practice.
OK, well I withdraw my objections to treating this as an acceptable
Fedora license for fonts. I reserve the right to complain about a
similar future non-font-oriented license. :-)
Since you both are having so much fun... here's my two cents ;)
I agree this is ok for Fedora, but I also understand Richard's initial
hesitation re: the naming issue.
I think the distinction is that
- the clause in Apache 2.0 is explicitly consistent with trademark law.
- whereas, this license sort of goes a step further and gives
instructions on how to change the name enough to avoid a "likelihood of
confusion" for the consumer (the standard for trademark infringement)
Stating you must rename a modified version (or derivative work) is
pretty common, but generally still considered free/open as it is merely
reflecting the reality of trademark law (at least that's they way I
think of it).
Explaining how to rename it - goes a step further, which could be seen
as too far, but in this case, it seems pretty reasonable.
I think the line gets crossed (and may be where Richard is reserving his
right to complain) when a license actually requires the use of a
specific name in a specific scenario, so-called "badgeware" licenses.
Pam Chestek did a great talk on this at FOSDEM 2014, if anyone is
interested :)
https://archive.fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/trademark_licenses/
Cheers,
Jilayne
10:59 a.m.
On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 11:52 AM Jilayne Lovejoy <jlovejoy(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On 11/11/21 9:35 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 2:59 PM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>> I understand the philosophical issue with restricting
renaming
>> generally. But I think if we go down that road, that represents a
>> significant policy shift from our past practice.
> OK, well I withdraw my objections to treating this as an acceptable
> Fedora license for fonts. I reserve the right to complain about a
> similar future non-font-oriented license. :-)
>
Since you both are having so much fun... here's my two cents ;)
I agree this is ok for Fedora, but I also understand Richard's initial
hesitation re: the naming issue.
I think the distinction is that
- the clause in Apache 2.0 is explicitly consistent with trademark law.
- whereas, this license sort of goes a step further and gives
instructions on how to change the name enough to avoid a "likelihood of
confusion" for the consumer (the standard for trademark infringement)
Stating you must rename a modified version (or derivative work) is
pretty common, but generally still considered free/open as it is merely
reflecting the reality of trademark law (at least that's they way I
think of it).
As I see it, there are plausibly-FLOSS licenses that attempt to
contractualize/non-trademark-intellectual-property-license-ize policy
concerns that have been traditionally associated with trademark law.
This is not categorically problematic. For example the OSD says "The
license may require derived works to carry a different name or version
number from the original software" and broadly speaking that seems to
be a correct distillation of how the community has looked at this
issue. But the question for me is how far or how much further can such
a license provision go than what we assume is the background trademark
law default for there to be a concern that the license is now too
restrictive to be considered free/open source. I don't believe there
is *no* such point at which a line is crossed.
I think what makes me accept this license with some misgivings is (a)
Ben's interpretation which is narrower than the one I initially had,
and (b) it's a font license and there's a mostly unacknowledged lower
standard applied to font licenses. So if this same provision appeared
in a software license I am not sure it should be acceptable.
Richard
3:55 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 12:48:22PM -0500, Ben Cotton wrote:
restricted calling a derivative work "dwarf" because
Merriam-Webster
says they're synonyms. But saying "you can't call it
'GNOME-ish'"
would be acceptable because it uses the word "GNOME".
Ooh. I was with you right up until this example. To me, "GNOME-ish" means
"reminiscent of GNOME but not GNOME", which seems like the kind of thing
that _should_ be allowed. GNOME-erific or GNOME-improved or even GNOME-fork,
yeah, I see. But I'd hate to see open source licenses getting into "that
big foot-race that happens to be in capital of Massachusetts every year" or
"I guess we'll just all say Superb Owl" territory.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
noon
>>>> Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> writes:
I am not sure if this should be acceptable for Fedora. My concern is
that the "UW" naming prohibition is unreasonably restrictive. Does
anyone have thoughts on this?
Naming can be difficult, but I believe we've long accepted clauses
forcing renaming. A license saying "don't use our name in your new
name" seems reasonable even if your name is just a few letters (like
"IBM" or "UW"). It is technically restricting a freedom but not in
any
way that seems meaningful.
Where I think it gets sticky is if a license were to prevent renaming,
or maybe to specify the name to be used for modified versions. A more
difficult corner case would be something like "must not start with the
letter 'a'" or "must sort higher alphabetically".
- J<
892
days inactive
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12 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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Artur Frenszek-Iwicki -
Ben Cotton -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Jilayne Lovejoy -
Matthew Miller -
Richard Fontana