While looking for some other fonts to package I noticed that all the LG Oski fonts are "All rights reserved" in the font metadata. I didn't look at any of the other LG fonts. As the fonts wish list page says GPL3 I was a bit confused.
More additions to the retirement page?
tk009
Le vendredi 30 juillet 2010 à 01:22 -0400, TK009 a écrit :
While looking for some other fonts to package I noticed that all the LG Oski fonts are "All rights reserved" in the font metadata. I didn't look at any of the other LG fonts. As the fonts wish list page says GPL3 I was a bit confused.
More additions to the retirement page?
Font metadata is often hopelessly messed up and does not always relflect what the author actually intended as licensing. Whan you find such a case, please mail the font author to confirm what the licensing is supposed to be. If its non-free, the packaged needs to be retired, but the most common case will be that the metadata lies and needs to be fixed by its author (ie a bug)
TK009 wrote:
While looking for some other fonts to package I noticed that all the LG Oski fonts are "All rights reserved" in the font metadata. I didn't look at any of the other LG fonts. As the fonts wish list page says GPL3 I was a bit confused.
More additions to the retirement page?
Hmm, there definitely seems to be a discrepancy between the wish list pages and the original website and fonts here.
I can't see any reference to the license terms on the website. It simply says they are "free".
Looking at Oski Blackfoot, which dates from 2003, the metadata says "All rights reserved" in the copyright field, with no license field.
Looking at African Serif, a newer one from 2007, the license agreement now says:
--quote-- This typeface is the property of Chris Harvey and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license agreement. You have obtained this typeface software either directly from Chris Harvey or together with software distributed by one of the products at languagegeek.com.
This font took a lot of work to make, so please, unless you have entered into a specific license agreement granting you additional rights, your use of this software is limited to your workstation for your own publishing use. You may not copy or distribute this software. Aboriginal community members and projects relating to Aboriginal languages may distribute the font freely. Contact Chris Harvey at languagegeek.com to get this free distribution permission. --endquote--
Or, the shorter version: "You can have this font. Don't show ANYONE!"
Le vendredi 30 juillet 2010 à 09:45 +0100, Paul Flo Williams a écrit :
TK009 wrote:
While looking for some other fonts to package I noticed that all the LG Oski fonts are "All rights reserved" in the font metadata. I didn't look at any of the other LG fonts. As the fonts wish list page says GPL3 I was a bit confused.
More additions to the retirement page?
Hmm, there definitely seems to be a discrepancy between the wish list pages and the original website and fonts here.
I can't see any reference to the license terms on the website. It simply says they are "free".
The new floss licensing conditions are stated there (GPLv3 + FE) http://www.languagegeek.com/misc/license/gnu.html
I think upstream slapped this page on the whole site some time in the past rather than trying to hunt down every other legal statement on the web site. Of course, it's always better to ask for confirmation if you have any doubt on a particular font.
Regards,
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:45 AM, Paul Flo Williams paul@frixxon.co.uk wrote:
TK009 wrote:
While looking for some other fonts to package I noticed that all the LG Oski fonts are "All rights reserved" in the font metadata. I didn't look at any of the other LG fonts. As the fonts wish list page says GPL3 I was a bit confused.
More additions to the retirement page?
Hmm, there definitely seems to be a discrepancy between the wish list pages and the original website and fonts here.
I can't see any reference to the license terms on the website. It simply says they are "free".
Looking at Oski Blackfoot, which dates from 2003, the metadata says "All rights reserved" in the copyright field, with no license field.
Looking at African Serif, a newer one from 2007, the license agreement now says:
--quote-- This typeface is the property of Chris Harvey and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license agreement. You have obtained this typeface software either directly from Chris Harvey or together with software distributed by one of the products at languagegeek.com.
This font took a lot of work to make, so please, unless you have entered into a specific license agreement granting you additional rights, your use of this software is limited to your workstation for your own publishing use. You may not copy or distribute this software. Aboriginal community members and projects relating to Aboriginal languages may distribute the font freely. Contact Chris Harvey at languagegeek.com to get this free distribution permission. --endquote--
Or, the shorter version: "You can have this font. Don't show ANYONE!"
-- Paul Williams http://hisdeedsaredust.com/category/fonts/feed
The site has a "GNU page", I use that term loosely. On that page he says download page and fonts are GPL unless the license in the font states otherwise. First sentence on the page.
As Nicolas has said, this could just be a bug. I believe he purposely being deceptive with the license. He knows what gpl is and knows what the licenses of his fonts are and in all this time has seen no reason to change the font metadata.
I see Nicolas has responded about the GNU page.
Here is were I get confused. If I were contact this person and they say yes its GPL and never change the metadata how is fedora protected from him coming back later and saying they were not GPL? Or is this a case of as long as we did our bit we don't really care?
I brought these fonts up just to give a heads up so that no one wastes their time with them. Whether they should be reitred or not is someone else's call. I have no interest in contacting the creator simply because this does not appear to be a case of ignorance, rather ambiguity of the licenses are by design. Common with font creators.
Le vendredi 30 juillet 2010 à 14:45 -0400, TK009 a écrit :
Here is were I get confused. If I were contact this person and they say yes its GPL and never change the metadata how is fedora protected from him coming back later and saying they were not GPL? Or is this a case of as long as we did our bit we don't really care?
When licensing is stated in a separate web page, or when you get confirmation in a mail that the licensing is fedora-friendly foo license when the font metadata states bar license, always package the web page or the mail as %doc in the package. This way we have a trace we did check the licensing and didn't invent it from scratch.
Of course, it is better when the font files are fixed so their metadata says the same about legal conditions, or better yet when they state it and the licensing text is included as a detached .txt/.pdf file in the zip/tar.gz they release (because most users will never read the metadata). However, many authors that can be convinced to switch to a good licence never bother to change it in their old font files (it is work that most font users wouldn't care less about). And “professional” expensive fonts such as Liberation and Droid were distributed by Red Hat and Google for a few months before people pointed out their contractor embedded bogus terms in the font metadata. So if big software corporations can not get it right, who can blame individuals that create fonts as a hobby?
So please, do not block on what the metadata of a font states. If you have good reason to believe the font is released under another licence, treat bogus metadata as a bug, not as a legal problem. A bug should be fixed (and you can remind politely upstream about it), but is not blocking unlike a legal problem.
Regards,