4 ms·

What does it reveal? That we're spiteful about having to submit to an "are you allowed to use this?" interrogation process every time we publish something, whet

What does it reveal? That we're spiteful about having to submit to an "are you allowed to use this?" interrogation process every time we publish something, whether or not we used something proprietary in it? 'cause yeah, I kinda am. The cost of compliance while not using proprietary fonts is the same as the cost of compliance while using them. The "just don't use them"-strategy fails to free up the efficiency that they're bogging down. Sure, it's not a big deal, you can look into the project and find the font and hope you put something helpful in the commit where you included it and send an email to legal--or whatever the hoops are for your particular case. But it's one of a million tiny third party concerns that are getting between you and your ability to give your user a good experience.

throwthere 5y ago
I’m sorry but I don’t follow you. Isn’t it stupid easy to get plenty of high quality fonts licensed for free at somewhere like Google fonts. If you need something else specific shouldn’t the creators be entitled to license their work? Why should you be entitled to their works?
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  I have no interest in using proprietary fonts. What I'm saying is that if I'm working on a project that includes a font somewhere and somebody points at some text and says "what is that font and are you allowed to use it?" I have to dig through the code and find the font and research its licensing whether or not it's proprietary. So long as the expectation is that we all must be able to prove that we're allowed to use the fonts that we're using, a proprietary font anywhere is a drag on productivity everywhere.
  - throwthere 5y ago
    Again I'm sorry but how often does that happen and how long does it take to verify your licenses? It just seems like a small price to pay for using someone else's work.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      I don't know how common it is, but in my case it was built into a binary, and it took us all day to take apart the build and figure out that yes-we were fine.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      >It just seems like a small price to pay for using someone else's work. Their example would still hold true if they were using a font they developed themselves, except instead of having to record the license information they would have to produce a license.

throwthere 5y ago

I’m sorry but I don’t follow you. Isn’t it stupid easy to get plenty of high quality fonts licensed for free at somewhere like Google fonts. If you need something else specific shouldn’t the creators be entitled to license their work? Why should you be entitled to their works?

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
I have no interest in using proprietary fonts. What I'm saying is that if I'm working on a project that includes a font somewhere and somebody points at some text and says "what is that font and are you allowed to use it?" I have to dig through the code and find the font and research its licensing whether or not it's proprietary. So long as the expectation is that we all must be able to prove that we're allowed to use the fonts that we're using, a proprietary font anywhere is a drag on productivity everywhere.
- throwthere 5y ago
  Again I'm sorry but how often does that happen and how long does it take to verify your licenses? It just seems like a small price to pay for using someone else's work.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    I don't know how common it is, but in my case it was built into a binary, and it took us all day to take apart the build and figure out that yes-we were fine.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    >It just seems like a small price to pay for using someone else's work. Their example would still hold true if they were using a font they developed themselves, except instead of having to record the license information they would have to produce a license.