5 ms·

I like Matthew Butterick’s approach. He sells whole families at a time (on a pay-once basis), offers discounts if you get the whole library, and the license is

I like Matthew Butterick’s approach. He sells whole families at a time (on a pay-once basis), offers discounts if you get the whole library, and the license is short, to the point, and reasonable: https://mbtype.com/license/ https://mbtype.com/license/

warpspin 4y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. That's truly a no bullshit licensing approach. Wish everyone would do it that way.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I love that the license includes the phrase “internet randos”.
  - duxup 4y ago
    I find myself using that phrase a lot. I don’t know why exactly, I think because it indicates a type of disconnected user that is hard to otherwise describe.
- beefield 4y ago
  I guess we have different opinions what "no bullshit" means. This is what I consider no bullshit license: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL And yes, I also wish everyone used this license everywhere.
neilv 4y ago
Matthew Butterick is also a lawyer, so I'd guess he crafted the license himself.
buraktamturk 4y ago
Article 8: "[...] the webfonts (= WOFF2 files) can be used on up to three websites owned by the license buyer. [...] read–write copies of my fonts can be embedded in word-processing documents that will be shared with fewer than 20 people."
- counttheforks 4y ago
  This seems like the opposite of reasonable. Now some font license is expecting me to keep track of how many people a document gets shared with? Dystopian. What if I print it? Why is that allowed, but a digital file is not? How does that mesh with "Licensed users can use my fonts in any way they like"? Also what does it even mean with a read-only format? Every file format can be ripped and converted, even if there is no widely known tooling to do so. A read-only format is not a thing that is possible. You can always just take some screenshots, or use a scanner, and reconstruct the font.
  - mroche 4y ago
    > Also what does it even mean with a read-only format? I assume documents like to-be-completed PDF's where an end-user may be filling in the blanks (Acrobat, DocuSign, etc).
manuelmoreale 4y ago
It's a lot better than most, that's for sure. But I still don't understand why they have all these arbitrary usage rules like the maximum of three websites. I look at fonts like tools. As a dev who also does design I should be able to buy it once and have it available as a tool at my disposal.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  It's classic market segmentation. They'll be happy to let use the fonts for whatever you want but you'll have to pay more.
  - chihuahua 4y ago
    Market segmentation makes sense in principle. If Joes Bait & Tackle shop wants to use your font, it makes sense that Joe should pay less than Google. Unfortunately, for an intangible digital thing like a web font, coming up with a payment scheme leads to all kinds of absurdities. That said, I think once you get to pre-paid expiring page views, that's a sign that we've entered the realm of insanity.
- jacobr1 4y ago
  For any use case? You join a F500 company and now they can use it? What if you leave the company. It makes sense if you are freelancer and can use it with an arbitrary number of clients. But then does it transfer when those clients sites are bought/sold/merged/rebuilt ? The problem is that the use isn't restricted to you as a designer, but is distributed by your clients. That makes it different than a hammer, or an IDE.
  - manuelmoreale 4y ago
    I think yours are good points and I'd be happy to figure out ways to work around those but honestly, those sound more sensible problems to solve than what we have now where we have sites like MyFonts that sell you fonts with pre-paid page views that expire after a certain date. Like, what the hell...
- 4y ago

warpspin 4y ago

Thanks for the recommendation. That's truly a no bullshit licensing approach. Wish everyone would do it that way.

sokoloff 4y ago
I love that the license includes the phrase “internet randos”.
- duxup 4y ago
  I find myself using that phrase a lot. I don’t know why exactly, I think because it indicates a type of disconnected user that is hard to otherwise describe.
beefield 4y ago
I guess we have different opinions what "no bullshit" means. This is what I consider no bullshit license: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL And yes, I also wish everyone used this license everywhere.

neilv 4y ago

Matthew Butterick is also a lawyer, so I'd guess he crafted the license himself.

buraktamturk 4y ago

Article 8: "[...] the webfonts (= WOFF2 files) can be used on up to three websites owned by the license buyer. [...] read–write copies of my fonts can be embedded in word-processing documents that will be shared with fewer than 20 people."

counttheforks 4y ago
This seems like the opposite of reasonable. Now some font license is expecting me to keep track of how many people a document gets shared with? Dystopian. What if I print it? Why is that allowed, but a digital file is not? How does that mesh with "Licensed users can use my fonts in any way they like"? Also what does it even mean with a read-only format? Every file format can be ripped and converted, even if there is no widely known tooling to do so. A read-only format is not a thing that is possible. You can always just take some screenshots, or use a scanner, and reconstruct the font.
- mroche 4y ago
  > Also what does it even mean with a read-only format? I assume documents like to-be-completed PDF's where an end-user may be filling in the blanks (Acrobat, DocuSign, etc).

manuelmoreale 4y ago

It's a lot better than most, that's for sure. But I still don't understand why they have all these arbitrary usage rules like the maximum of three websites. I look at fonts like tools. As a dev who also does design I should be able to buy it once and have it available as a tool at my disposal.

mytailorisrich 4y ago
It's classic market segmentation. They'll be happy to let use the fonts for whatever you want but you'll have to pay more.
- chihuahua 4y ago
  Market segmentation makes sense in principle. If Joes Bait & Tackle shop wants to use your font, it makes sense that Joe should pay less than Google. Unfortunately, for an intangible digital thing like a web font, coming up with a payment scheme leads to all kinds of absurdities. That said, I think once you get to pre-paid expiring page views, that's a sign that we've entered the realm of insanity.
jacobr1 4y ago
For any use case? You join a F500 company and now they can use it? What if you leave the company. It makes sense if you are freelancer and can use it with an arbitrary number of clients. But then does it transfer when those clients sites are bought/sold/merged/rebuilt ? The problem is that the use isn't restricted to you as a designer, but is distributed by your clients. That makes it different than a hammer, or an IDE.
- manuelmoreale 4y ago
  I think yours are good points and I'd be happy to figure out ways to work around those but honestly, those sound more sensible problems to solve than what we have now where we have sites like MyFonts that sell you fonts with pre-paid page views that expire after a certain date. Like, what the hell...
4y ago