For approval: SIL Open Font License 1.1

Wilson, Andrew andrew.wilson at intel.com
Tue Nov 11 17:29:04 UTC 2008


John Cowan wrote:

> But a PDF with text and the embedded font *does* physically contain the font's
> code, and thus (so it seems to me) is a derivative work of the font.  I have
> been reminded, however, that "derivative work" is left only partly defined on
> purpose for the sake of flexibility, and that we really won't know the answer
> until a founder takes a PDF distributor to court whether my theory is
> correct.

[off-topic]

I believe you are correct that embedding a font in a document (as opposed to
printing or displaying a document using a font) would create a derivative
work.  However, my understanding is that PDF was created to finesse
exactly this problem.  If a required font is missing in a PDF document,
Adobe Reader will render an approximate replacement font on the fly
using a multi-master font such as Adobe Myriad.

Andy Wilson
Intel open source technology center



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