On Sat, Jan 28, 2006 at 09:35:33PM +0100, Nicolas Spalinger wrote: > > 3) No Modified Version of the Font Software may use the Reserved > > Font Name(s), in part or in whole, unless explicit written > > permission is granted by the Copyright Holder. This restriction > > applies to all references stored in the Font Software, such as > > the font menu name and other font description fields, which are > > used to differentiate the font from others. > > > > Limited naming restrictions are permitted by DFSG §4. However, the > > naming restriction above is significantly more broad than the naming > > restriction that DFSG §4 was written to allow. (Earlier versions of > > the LaTeX Project Public License required renaming the filenames of > > modified versions so that they wouldn't conflict; that restriction has > > since been removed.) As such, it's likely that this clause will > > restrict the inclusion of works which have Reserved Font Names in > > Debian. > > This restriction only concerns the name of the font as it appears in a > font menu and not the actual names of the files like in the older LPPL > requirement you are referring to. > The goal of the OFL is to avoid naming > conflicts so that documents actually render as expected
That's impossible to accomplish in a copyright license. I can take a completely unrelated font, rename it to your font name, and release it. Your copyright license can do nothing, since the font I'm using is not under that license. It takes a trademark to do this; copyright is ill-suited for it. (But, copyright licenses are free to try--within reasonable limits.) > "Users who install derivatives ("Modified Versions") on their systems > should not see any of the original names ("Reserved Font Names") in > their font menus, font properties dialogs, PostScript streams, documents > that refer to a particular font name, etc. Again, this is to ensure that Font metadata might list "similar fonts", to show in a dialog "Fonts that look similar to ...". This license prohibits this, since it says I can't use the original name *at all* in the derived version. It might also have metadata that says "if you need a glyph that isn't present here, try getting it from the font named ...". The license also prohibits this. (This isn't contrived; I've implemented a simple bitmap font system that did this.) I believe restricting these things is beyond what DFSG#4 allows. > The "in part" is really meant to cover the case when there are various > words used in reserved font names. If "Foo" and "Org" are both are RFN > for the font "Foo Org", any designer can branch and create his > derivative but calling it "Bar Org" or "Foo Inc" is not allowed. The > unit to consider here is the word and not the letter. If a font name is "Times Roman", I can't create a derivative named "Glenn Roman"; worse, if it's "Times New Roman", I can't name it "Glenn's New Font"? Again, trademark handles this much more gracefully, since it already has well-established mechanisms in place for determining things like "confusingly similar". Trying to replicate this in a copyright license really isn't going to work. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]