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Noto fonts are great. I especially love the OFL licensing. I wanted to include fonts in a mobile application and there was confusion on whether including a GPL

Noto fonts are great. I especially love the OFL licensing. I wanted to include fonts in a mobile application and there was confusion on whether including a GPL version of the fonts would force me to GPL my app - something I could not do. I couldn't find a definite answer. With Noto's OFL licensing, I no longer had that worry.

eveningcoffee 10y ago
I think that you are looking to the GPL from the wrong perspective. I also made this mistake. GPL does not force you to licence your application under GPL. Instead licensing your application under GPL allows you to use other GPL licensed code.
- zanny 10y ago
  You don't have to use the GPL to link GPL code. You are just required to distribute the final binary under GPL. When you distribute the source files, individual files can be under individual licenses, they just have to all be license compatible with the final license. IE, use GPL code, license header all your own stuff as Apache, distribute the binary as GPL, but anyone else can use your own work under Apache if they want if you are individually licensing all your own files under it, they just could not use the GPL parts without also distributing under GPL.
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    Do you know a project where such licensing scheme is used as an acceptable practice? As to be honest, it looks counter productive against GPL ideas.
    - halomru 10y ago
      In my eyes that practise would be equivalent with dual-licensing your code under GPL and the (more liberal) license of your choice. This happens with some frequency. It's a way to honor the GPL idea for the stuff you link to without having to follow GPL ideas for your new code.
    - SXX 10y ago
      Linux kernel is one for instance. Tons of drivers there include GPU one are permissively licensed to make it possible to reuse that code for other kernels like BSD.
- Gaelan 10y ago
  That seems like a meaningless semantic difference to me. There is no practical difference between these two sentences: If you wish to use GPL-licensed code, your code must be open source. If your code is open source, you may use GPL-licensed code.
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    Yes, these two feel quite similar for me too, but the one "GPL forces you to licence your application under GPL." is quite different. Both of your wordings are quite neutral, but this one contains in my opinion a quite strong negative element. For me it was small, but important difference.
  - etatoby 10y ago
    It's not meaningless. If I give something away under certain conditions, I'm not forcing anybody to adhere to those conditions. Instead, if they choose to adopt those conditions, they get free stuff from me (and a lot of other people.) In other words, it's an incentive program, not a requirement such as a law or regulation.
tobltobs 10y ago
Following you logic you would have to release your app now with a Open Font License ...
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Not at all... The GPL requires anything that "includes" it to be GPL compatible. The definition of "includes" that it uses is pretty "iffy" and could easily be extended to include the whole application if you aren't very careful. OFL has no requirement like that, so you can use it freely in whatever project you want.

eveningcoffee 10y ago

I think that you are looking to the GPL from the wrong perspective. I also made this mistake. GPL does not force you to licence your application under GPL. Instead licensing your application under GPL allows you to use other GPL licensed code.

zanny 10y ago
You don't have to use the GPL to link GPL code. You are just required to distribute the final binary under GPL. When you distribute the source files, individual files can be under individual licenses, they just have to all be license compatible with the final license. IE, use GPL code, license header all your own stuff as Apache, distribute the binary as GPL, but anyone else can use your own work under Apache if they want if you are individually licensing all your own files under it, they just could not use the GPL parts without also distributing under GPL.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  Do you know a project where such licensing scheme is used as an acceptable practice? As to be honest, it looks counter productive against GPL ideas.
  - halomru 10y ago
    In my eyes that practise would be equivalent with dual-licensing your code under GPL and the (more liberal) license of your choice. This happens with some frequency. It's a way to honor the GPL idea for the stuff you link to without having to follow GPL ideas for your new code.
  - SXX 10y ago
    Linux kernel is one for instance. Tons of drivers there include GPU one are permissively licensed to make it possible to reuse that code for other kernels like BSD.
Gaelan 10y ago
That seems like a meaningless semantic difference to me. There is no practical difference between these two sentences: If you wish to use GPL-licensed code, your code must be open source. If your code is open source, you may use GPL-licensed code.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  Yes, these two feel quite similar for me too, but the one "GPL forces you to licence your application under GPL." is quite different. Both of your wordings are quite neutral, but this one contains in my opinion a quite strong negative element. For me it was small, but important difference.
- etatoby 10y ago
  It's not meaningless. If I give something away under certain conditions, I'm not forcing anybody to adhere to those conditions. Instead, if they choose to adopt those conditions, they get free stuff from me (and a lot of other people.) In other words, it's an incentive program, not a requirement such as a law or regulation.

tobltobs 10y ago

Following you logic you would have to release your app now with a Open Font License ...

Klathmon 10y ago
Not at all... The GPL requires anything that "includes" it to be GPL compatible. The definition of "includes" that it uses is pretty "iffy" and could easily be extended to include the whole application if you aren't very careful. OFL has no requirement like that, so you can use it freely in whatever project you want.