4 ms·

The OFL-1.1 license on Public Sans violates 17 USC § 105

3 points by beefhash 7y ago

eropple 7y ago
For those who don't read the thread: the original poster attempts to assert that the OFL is not being followed correctly because US government employees cannot copyright (in the United States, that is--they need not be elsewhere, which is something often forgotten) governmental work. My non-lawyery, albeit experienced with IP management and the open-source licensing rabbit hole, assessment is that that makes very little sense. The OFL states that derivative works must be under the OFL--they cannot be released under "any other license"--but assignment to the public domain isn't a license, while from a permissive perspective the OFL is a subset of the permissions granted via public domain. Public Sans is a derivative of Libre Franklin, which is licensed under the OFL; derivatives likewise are necessarily OFL even if changes made by US government employees are public domain. I seem to recall from other libre font discussions that @mbutterick (the OP) has something of an axe to grind about libre fonts in general, though I don't recall specifics.
- beefhash 7y ago
  > I seem to recall from other libre font discussions that @mbutterick (the OP) has something of an axe to grind about libre fonts in general, though I don't recall specifics. He does believe that most of them are of sub-par quality and he has reason to be biased (due to being in the business of selling fonts himself), but also cites some counter-examples[1]. I don't think he's opposed to libre fonts as a concept. [1] https://practicaltypography.com/free-fonts.html https://practicaltypography.com/free-fonts.html, of which he is the author
  - eropple 7y ago
    Could be. Like I said, I only dimly recall it. Google employees have made a few really good libre fonts. Oxygen is my go-to font for almost anything design-related that I do precisely because it is a really solid free font. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Oxygen https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Oxygen

3 points by beefhash 7y ago

For those who don't read the thread: the original poster attempts to assert that the OFL is not being followed correctly because US government employees cannot copyright (in the United States, that is--they need not be elsewhere, which is something often forgotten) governmental work. My non-lawyery, albeit experienced with IP management and the open-source licensing rabbit hole, assessment is that that makes very little sense. The OFL states that derivative works must be under the OFL--they cannot be released under "any other license"--but assignment to the public domain isn't a license, while from a permissive perspective the OFL is a subset of the permissions granted via public domain. Public Sans is a derivative of Libre Franklin, which is licensed under the OFL; derivatives likewise are necessarily OFL even if changes made by US government employees are public domain. I seem to recall from other libre font discussions that @mbutterick (the OP) has something of an axe to grind about libre fonts in general, though I don't recall specifics.

beefhash 7y ago
> I seem to recall from other libre font discussions that @mbutterick (the OP) has something of an axe to grind about libre fonts in general, though I don't recall specifics. He does believe that most of them are of sub-par quality and he has reason to be biased (due to being in the business of selling fonts himself), but also cites some counter-examples[1]. I don't think he's opposed to libre fonts as a concept. [1] https://practicaltypography.com/free-fonts.html https://practicaltypography.com/free-fonts.html, of which he is the author
- eropple 7y ago
  Could be. Like I said, I only dimly recall it. Google employees have made a few really good libre fonts. Oxygen is my go-to font for almost anything design-related that I do precisely because it is a really solid free font. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Oxygen https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Oxygen