Hi, All, I've added IPA license detection to Fontaine:
------------------------------------------------------------------------ r20 | edtrager | 2009-04-06 17:40:31 -0400 (Mon, 06 Apr 2009) | 1 line Added Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) license which is now an Open Source approved license (http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html). Thanks to Dave Crossland for this information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Ed On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:54 PM, Dave Crossland <d...@lab6.com> wrote: > Hi, > > More licensing curmudgeon-ry from me I'm afraid :-) > > A new OSI approved font license is out, the Japanese "IPA Font License": > > http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html > > The OFLB is only going to run with the most popular free font > licenses, to encourage license consolidation, so I doubt the OFLB will > accept IFL fonts anyway. > > So, if you're not interested in font licensing, please note the > existence of the license and mark this thread as read :-) > > I wonder if the story of its creation will be published to the same > extent that the SIL OFL process has been documented; I guess that > there was some kind of wrestling match between proprietary-minded font > developers and freedom-minded customers. > > Some of the history is revealed with a quick search: Bruce Perens has > been helpfully guiding the drafts of this - > http://perens.com/blog/?s=open+font - although, sadly, his original > objections which I share about only distributing derived versions as > "diff" files - > http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:516:200902:ahjoeececbbcpiajppfi > - apply to the final OSI approved license. > > Although I'm happy some Japanese fonts are being released with an OSI > approved license, this diff requirement makes it a very poor license > IMO. The draft Perens linked to at > http://ipafont.ipa.go.jp/enduser_license_draft090304.pdf has the > makings of a much better license, and is probably only interesting to > me so I'll skip over my thoughts about it here. > > However, the key thing about the license is that it (appears to) patch > the "PDF loophole" that Perens claims the SIL OFL has at > http://perens.com/blog/2009/02/17/64/ > > "loophole that would allow the conversion of any font under the > license to public domain" > > OFL S5: "he Font Software, modified or unmodified, in part or in > whole, must be distributed entirely under this license, and must not > be distributed under any other license. The requirement for fonts to > remain under this license does not apply to any document created using > the Font Software." > - http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL_web > > IFL S2.4: "In the case of a Digital Document File containing Embedded > Fonts created by embedding such fonts to the extent allowed under this > Agreement, the Recipient may conduct Reproduction and Other > Exploitation of the Digital Document File, without requiring the > Recipient of such Digital Document File to comply with this Agreement. > For the avoidance of doubt, such Recipient may not create and conduct > Reproduction and Other Exploitation of a Derived Program from such > Digital Document File except according to the terms of this > Agreement." > - http://opensource.org/licenses/ipafont.html > > I hope this will help in the updating of the GNU GPL Font Exception :-) > > Cheers > Dave >