font licensing

[François Cami]

Hi,

Please note than I am very far from being a lawyer.

I would like to package a particular font for cultural reasons. Its
glyphs can be used to render two languages and it has been created on
behalf of an official government body for cultural purposes. That body
is distributing it through its website. Unfortunately, the archive
does not contain any licensing information. I emailed that particular
government, and got a reply saying the font was "was developed for
free distribution" and that the government "(allows the) public to
freely download. It is copyrighted to <insert government body here>".

I have read the licensing guidelines for fonts and I am aware that is
not sufficient, as IIRC that means the font cannot be modified, and
probably cannot be distributed by third parties. Am I right in
believing this?

I have asked them to add a copyright notice and a license to the zip
file, preferably (of course) the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Any advice would be nice.

Thanks,

François

[Tom Callaway]

On 08/17/2010 01:18 PM, François Cami wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  Please note than I am very far from being a lawyer.
>  
>  I would like to package a particular font for cultural reasons. Its
>  glyphs can be used to render two languages and it has been created on
>  behalf of an official government body for cultural purposes. That body
>  is distributing it through its website. Unfortunately, the archive
>  does not contain any licensing information. I emailed that particular
>  government, and got a reply saying the font was "was developed for
>  free distribution" and that the government "(allows the) public to
>  freely download. It is copyrighted to <insert government body here>".
>  
>  I have read the licensing guidelines for fonts and I am aware that is
>  not sufficient, as IIRC that means the font cannot be modified, and
>  probably cannot be distributed by third parties. Am I right in
>  believing this? 
This is correct.

>  I have asked them to add a copyright notice and a license to the zip
>  file, preferably (of course) the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
>  
>  Any advice would be nice. 
It never hurts to explain to them exactly what you want, with regards to
licensing rights.

In broad terms, you want:

* The right to freely use the font, without restrictions
* The right to modify the font, without restrictions
* The right to freely redistribute the font, without restrictions
* To be able to pass those rights along to anyone who receives a copy of
the font

Good luck!

~spot

[François Cami]

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 7:28 PM, Tom "spot" Callaway
<tcallawa(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 08/17/2010 01:18 PM, François Cami wrote:
> > Any advice would be nice.
>
>  It never hurts to explain to them exactly what you want, with regards to
>  licensing rights.
>
>  In broad terms, you want:
>
>  * The right to freely use the font, without restrictions
>  * The right to modify the font, without restrictions
>  * The right to freely redistribute the font, without restrictions
>  * To be able to pass those rights along to anyone who receives a copy of
>  the font 
Thank you Tom, I am going to explain that to them.

>  Good luck! 
Thanks again, I guess I'll need it...

François