<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Hi,<br><br>Thanks for looping me in\u2014since my X/Twitter thread was referenced, I should clarify my view.<br><br>As a matter of fact, the Council for the Promotion of Character Information Technology (CITPC), which inherited the font program from IPA, contacted the operator of a site that offered WOFF-converted builds of the MJ Mincho font released under the IPA Font License v1.0, and asked them to refrain from publishing those fonts. The operator subsequently removed the fonts. I don\u2019t know what was discussed privately between the parties.<br><br>Based on the public information, my read is: the WOFF builds were treated as a \u201cderived program\u201d under the IPA Font License (format conversions are expressly considered derivatives), and the redistribution appears not to have followed Article 3.1 conditions. If they had renamed the font/family/file names, provided any additional files (if any) needed for further modification, offered a method for recipients to replace the derived program with the original, and distributed under the same license, I believe the service could likely have continued. It seems the operator chose removal rather than implementing those compliance steps. <br><br>Accordingly, I don\u2019t see this episode as bearing on whether the IPA Font License v1.0 is \u201cOpen Source.\u201d It looks like an operational compliance issue around redistribution conditions, not a challenge to the license\u2019s status. <br><br>--<br>Shuji Sado</div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">2025/9/8 7:32 Josh Berkus <<a href="mailto:josh@berkus.org">josh@berkus.org</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On 9/4/25 09:55, <a href="mailto:tdaskk@riseup.net" target="_blank">tdaskk@riseup.net</a> wrote:<br>
> In March 2024, an incident occurred where the operator of a web service <br>
> converting IPA fonts licensed under the IPA Font License to WOFF format <br>
> received a warning from the IPA to discontinue the service.<br>
> In response, questions have arisen within the Japanese-speaking open- <br>
> source community about whether the IPA Font License fundamentally meets <br>
> the definition of open source.<br>
<br>
The IPA Font License pretty explicitly allows changes of format and <br>
redistribution. Am I not understanding the case here? What is IPA's <br>
objection?<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Josh Berkus<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Shuji Sado</div><div>Chairman, Open Source Group Japan<br><a href="https://opensource.jp/" target="_blank">https://opensource.jp/</a></div><div><a href="https://shujisado.com/" target="_blank">https://shujisado.com/</a></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>