For approval: SIL Open Font License 1.1

[Matthew Flaschen]

Bruce Perens wrote:
> Only software? I can't for example, distribute the fonts as part of a
> disk full of documents that incorporate them by reference? This seems to
> me to be a pretty big problem.

I agree it's not ideal, but to be fair they are relying on a
longstanding and deliberate loophole in OSD #1 (distribution is allowed
if it's part of an "aggregate software distribution").

 I understand that you want to avoid the
> 1000-Fonts disks,

As I said (in similar words in another email) I think 1000-Fonts disks
would be legal, provided all the fonts are considered software (meaning
they have hinting or something similar)

 but it seems the cure is worse than the disease. My
> free software is on lots of CDs that are sold. If anything, that has
> helped to enlarge its community.
> 
>    provided that any reserved  names
>    names are not used by derivative works.
> 
> I understand that you don't want the reserved names to be used as font
> names in derivative works, so that people will get the font they asked
> for.

OSD is very clear in allowing this ("The license may require derived
works to carry a different name") and for fonts there is very good
reason (if I specify "coolfont OR serif" I don't want the software to
use a sans-serif font called coolfont.

 But suppose I wrote one of the reserved names into a
> machine-readable list of front names from which the font was derived.
> That is useful but fails the above term. Suppose someone had a font
> named "The", and I had a font named "The Tiger".

I don't think a court would accept "The" as a reserved name under
longstanding trademark law.

Matt Flaschen