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Related: the US government has its own font. The page mentions it further down. https://public-sans.digital.gov/ https://public-sans.digital.gov/ Discussion o

Related: the US government has its own font. The page mentions it further down. https://public-sans.digital.gov/ https://public-sans.digital.gov/ Discussion of the font on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607371

anentropic 7y ago
I came here to say... that body text font renders really nicely on my screen
velcrovan 7y ago
This font is even more interesting because it of its extremely uncertain copyright/licensing situation: “Open-source licenses, like all software licenses, are only possible through assertion of copyright. Certain free-software advocates prefer to sidestep this inconvenient fact (akin to ‘keep your government hands off my Medicare’). For individual software authors, this usually poses no problem, because their copyright arises at the moment the work is created. Thus, they’re free to put their work under any license, including an open-source license. “But US government employees are a special case. As a matter of federal law (17 USC § 105), they can’t assert copyright in their work. Public Sans is an inseparable mixture of copyrighted work (= the underlying Libre Franklin font) and uncopyrightable work (= the alterations made by the GSA). The GSA currently claims that Public Sans has been released under the OFL. But that’s impossible. To use this license, they’d first need to have a copyright in their contributions. But they don’t.” — Matthew Butterick (type designer + lawyer) https://tinyletter.com/mbutterick/letters/the-curious-case-of-public-sans-billionaire-s-typewriter-update https://tinyletter.com/mbutterick/letters/the-curious-case-o...
- acdha 7y ago
  His position is not common and there's a long history of U.S. government lawyers approving participation in open-source projects under licenses which are not the public domain — e.g. SELinux is under the GPL because the original Linux kernel was and the NSA's lawyers approved that contribution. Here's the upstream issue: https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/30 https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/30 He also opened a separate issue claiming an Establishment clause violation because the OFL was created by https://www.sil.org/about https://www.sil.org/about: https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/31 https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/31
  - velcrovan 7y ago
    I am aware of the Github issue and in fact Matthew has addressed your SELinux point in that discussion. He agrees that if the original font had been licensed under the GPL there would not be an issue here. But the language of the SIL OFL is different than (and incompatible with) the GPL, so the outcome is not automatically the same. And the OSI (the OFL licence's FSF-equivalent) takes the position that public domain and open source don't mix.
    - acdha 7y ago
      Yes, he restated his belief that the U.S. government cannot participate in non-public domain open source projects but he hasn't addressed why so many government lawyers do not share that opinion.
      - velcrovan 7y ago
        Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion. Not sure how he is supposed to have addressed the "lotsa government lawyers think different" argument when no one in that thread has raised it, let alone provided any evidence of it. And again, for it to be relevant, these government lawyer opinions would need to be talking about the OFL specifically.
        acdha 7y ago
        > Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion. His claim comes down to the U.S. government not being able to use any license which relies on copyright claims, which is not unique to OFL. This is why the government lawyers question is relevant: if he's right, that means that a bunch of other contributions shouldn't have been allowed unless the projects are public domain or dual-licensed.
        velcrovan 7y ago
- KeenFox 7y ago
  I'm not sure of the practical implications for someone looking to use it in a design project. Who would have standing to sue for infringement, and in what situations?
  - velcrovan 7y ago
    I think it's not that someone might now have standing to sue for something and might do it; it's that actually no one has standing to sue even though the GSA is pretending that they do. If true, the practical implication is that A) Public Sans is in the public domain within the USA, which means people there have freedoms in using it that they wouldn't otherwise have; and B) their current license is incoherently obscuring these freedoms. The GSA can't license something that is in the public domain. Should they recognize this fact, it will make clear what people can and can't do with the font.

anentropic 7y ago

I came here to say... that body text font renders really nicely on my screen

velcrovan 7y ago

This font is even more interesting because it of its extremely uncertain copyright/licensing situation: “Open-source licenses, like all software licenses, are only possible through assertion of copyright. Certain free-software advocates prefer to sidestep this inconvenient fact (akin to ‘keep your government hands off my Medicare’). For individual software authors, this usually poses no problem, because their copyright arises at the moment the work is created. Thus, they’re free to put their work under any license, including an open-source license. “But US government employees are a special case. As a matter of federal law (17 USC § 105), they can’t assert copyright in their work. Public Sans is an inseparable mixture of copyrighted work (= the underlying Libre Franklin font) and uncopyrightable work (= the alterations made by the GSA). The GSA currently claims that Public Sans has been released under the OFL. But that’s impossible. To use this license, they’d first need to have a copyright in their contributions. But they don’t.” — Matthew Butterick (type designer + lawyer) https://tinyletter.com/mbutterick/letters/the-curious-case-of-public-sans-billionaire-s-typewriter-update https://tinyletter.com/mbutterick/letters/the-curious-case-o...

acdha 7y ago
His position is not common and there's a long history of U.S. government lawyers approving participation in open-source projects under licenses which are not the public domain — e.g. SELinux is under the GPL because the original Linux kernel was and the NSA's lawyers approved that contribution. Here's the upstream issue: https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/30 https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/30 He also opened a separate issue claiming an Establishment clause violation because the OFL was created by https://www.sil.org/about https://www.sil.org/about: https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/31 https://github.com/uswds/public-sans/issues/31
- velcrovan 7y ago
  I am aware of the Github issue and in fact Matthew has addressed your SELinux point in that discussion. He agrees that if the original font had been licensed under the GPL there would not be an issue here. But the language of the SIL OFL is different than (and incompatible with) the GPL, so the outcome is not automatically the same. And the OSI (the OFL licence's FSF-equivalent) takes the position that public domain and open source don't mix.
  - acdha 7y ago
    Yes, he restated his belief that the U.S. government cannot participate in non-public domain open source projects but he hasn't addressed why so many government lawyers do not share that opinion.
    - velcrovan 7y ago
      Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion. Not sure how he is supposed to have addressed the "lotsa government lawyers think different" argument when no one in that thread has raised it, let alone provided any evidence of it. And again, for it to be relevant, these government lawyer opinions would need to be talking about the OFL specifically.
      - acdha 7y ago
        > Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion. His claim comes down to the U.S. government not being able to use any license which relies on copyright claims, which is not unique to OFL. This is why the government lawyers question is relevant: if he's right, that means that a bunch of other contributions shouldn't have been allowed unless the projects are public domain or dual-licensed.
        velcrovan 7y ago
KeenFox 7y ago
I'm not sure of the practical implications for someone looking to use it in a design project. Who would have standing to sue for infringement, and in what situations?
- velcrovan 7y ago
  I think it's not that someone might now have standing to sue for something and might do it; it's that actually no one has standing to sue even though the GSA is pretending that they do. If true, the practical implication is that A) Public Sans is in the public domain within the USA, which means people there have freedoms in using it that they wouldn't otherwise have; and B) their current license is incoherently obscuring these freedoms. The GSA can't license something that is in the public domain. Should they recognize this fact, it will make clear what people can and can't do with the font.