If you have any interest in the state of Free Software typography, I implore you to try and convince Jos Buivenga to license his fonts under a license that works with Free Software, and, at the same time, gives him the legal protection he requires in a fashion that meets his needs. This might include something such as the Creative Commons, the SIL Open Font License, or like license that allows us, as Free Software users, to include his beautiful work in repositories and source packages.
Mr. Buivenga's work is nothing short of absolutely beautiful craftsmanship. If you are unfamiliar with his work, head over to his site and examine some of his typefaces.
Further still, his typefaces are already licensed in a fashion that puts them extremely close to some of our acceptable licenses. All we need to do is to persuade him that such a move would not only be appreciated, but also help protect him in terms of legal situations. With your showing of support, we may move one step closer to making this a reality.
I am dearly hoping that I can include Fontin Sans in Mythbuntu's default theme for 8.10. With a little recognition, support, and desire, we may be able to make this happen and, at the same time, greatly help out the typography situation for all of Free Software. Can you imagine having Fontin or Fontin Sans available by default in a project such as Ubuntu? Wow.
Thank you for all of your help. This may be the one time I'd love to see someone put a Digg article / Reddit article up to help the cause. Jos might just well consider it if we show him some sincere enthusiasm and support.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
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27 comments:
Hi, can I translate your post and pass it on differents planets ? Why are you not on planet.ubuntu.com ?
@Anonymous:
I am not on Planet because I am not an Ubuntu member. Feel free to give Jos the attention in whatever manner you can. Thanks for visiting!
Ok, I will do these :)
for information : http://eimai.blogsome.com/2008/07/27/dejavu-fonts-226-released/
"This font may not be distributed or sold -not online nor on any media- without my permission"
So we ask his permission or?
I'd post a Digg article on this or something, but you didn't state what are we supposed to be doing exactly.
E-mail sent :).
I've donated 20 euro to him, that should a bit.
Hi all,
I'm willing to think about a Creative Commons by-nd license for Fontin, Fontin Sans and Delicious.
At the moment I'm consulting some people about this, but I'll keep you posted as soon as I've made up my mind or if I might have some question you might be able to answer.
Best regards,
Jos.
BTW - Thanks very much for the generous donation. It will be used for the further development of my free fonts, but it won't affect my decision.
Unfortunately, CC by-nd is not free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. But it would certainly be better than the current situation :).
There seems to be some confusion as to what one can do...
Ultimately, this is obviously up to Jos. What we need are the options in terms of licenses as I am no expert. Our culture is so focused on code, it isn't terribly clear what choices are out there in terms of Free Software when it comes to compatible artistic licenses.
Obviously, the best thing we can do right now is to head over and support Jos' beautiful designs -- his work is amazing.
What we can accomplish as Free Software supporters is show the possible licenses that work for our culture. I know Debian has different rules to say, Ubuntu in terms of the repository structure. What are the requirements for say, OpenBSD or FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenSolaris?
Heck, I don't know of a site off hand that has a full and comprehensive listing of artistic licenses and how they fit into the bigger picture with regards to audio, video, art, typefaces, etc.
I know there are some folks out there with a near genius level of understanding of the various licenses and how they work, so perhaps they can lend a hand to illuminate the options.
Thanks to everyone who has offered Jos kind words. He truly deserves it.
Back at you readers!
"Our culture is so focused on code, it isn't terribly clear what choices are out there in terms of Free Software when it comes to compatible artistic licenses."
That's not quite true. Debian-legal considers a large swath of things outside of code. Shortly before Ubuntu became public, Debian had decided that documentation and other stuff should be held to the same scrutiny and standards. Debian-legal seems to be the best place to ask what an appropriate license might be. I imagine that SIL license is the way to go, but Debian-legal has the expertise to know what works with DFSG.
This all said, it's unfortunate that the Artistic License is more of a pun than a license intended for artwork. And yes, cc-by-nd is no good for Mythbuntu, I'd hope. It's not hard to imagine a vendor selling computers with Mythbuntu preinstalled, and not aware that deep within lies this non-commercial trap.
It is really always up the designer to decide but asking and pointing out the benefits never hurts :-)
The Go for OFL! campaign shows the support major community bodies have put behind the OFL and provide a useful template in advocating releasing font software under a validated so that it can be included in distributions:
Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora have had various OFL-ed fonts in main for a while.
The Debian fonts team review page, and the unifont.org fontguide can also be useful to measure the growing amount of open fonts already available:
There are specs and other useful things handled by the Ubuntu fonts team .
So, any news on this? Those fonts are so beautiful!
@børge:
Jos is apparently weighing his options. We have exchanged a few emails on the matter.
Unfortunately, the latest date for anything to make it into Intrepid is August 27th.
About all we can do at this point is show our support as Free Software users and hope that he can arrive at a decision on licensing that works in the context of Free Software.
If a great number of Free Software supporters show Jos their care and commitment to his work, perhaps we can ultimately affect change.
The number of people who passionately care about art and design enough to create change are dwarfed by the number of people that are actually affected by such matters.
August 27th is the freeze date; after that exceptions must be approved. It's not a point of no return, simply a point of harder return. If the fonts are worth it, they could make it in, especially if they don't run much risk of breaking anything.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal_considerations_for_fonts
"Our culture is so focused on code, it isn't terribly clear what choices are out there in terms of Free Software when it comes to compatible artistic licenses."
That's not quite true. Debian-legal considers a large swath of things outside of code. Shortly before Ubuntu became public, Debian had decided that documentation and other stuff should be held to the same scrutiny and standards. Debian-legal seems to be the best place to ask what an appropriate license might be. I imagine that SIL license is the way to go, but Debian-legal has the expertise to know what works with DFSG.
This all said, it's unfortunate that the Artistic License is more of a pun than a license intended for artwork. And yes, cc-by-nd is no good for Mythbuntu, I'd hope. It's not hard to imagine a vendor selling computers with Mythbuntu preinstalled, and not aware that deep within lies this non-commercial trap.
There seems to be some confusion as to what one can do...
Ultimately, this is obviously up to Jos. What we need are the options in terms of licenses as I am no expert. Our culture is so focused on code, it isn't terribly clear what choices are out there in terms of Free Software when it comes to compatible artistic licenses.
Obviously, the best thing we can do right now is to head over and support Jos' beautiful designs -- his work is amazing.
What we can accomplish as Free Software supporters is show the possible licenses that work for our culture. I know Debian has different rules to say, Ubuntu in terms of the repository structure. What are the requirements for say, OpenBSD or FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenSolaris?
Heck, I don't know of a site off hand that has a full and comprehensive listing of artistic licenses and how they fit into the bigger picture with regards to audio, video, art, typefaces, etc.
I know there are some folks out there with a near genius level of understanding of the various licenses and how they work, so perhaps they can lend a hand to illuminate the options.
Thanks to everyone who has offered Jos kind words. He truly deserves it.
Back at you readers!
It is really always up the designer to decide but asking and pointing out the benefits never hurts :-)
The Go for OFL! campaign shows the support major community bodies have put behind the OFL and provide a useful template in advocating releasing font software under a validated so that it can be included in distributions:
Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora have had various OFL-ed fonts in main for a while.
The Debian fonts team review page, and the unifont.org fontguide can also be useful to measure the growing amount of open fonts already available:
There are specs and other useful things handled by the Ubuntu fonts team .
Hi all,
I'm willing to think about a Creative Commons by-nd license for Fontin, Fontin Sans and Delicious.
At the moment I'm consulting some people about this, but I'll keep you posted as soon as I've made up my mind or if I might have some question you might be able to answer.
Best regards,
Jos.
BTW - Thanks very much for the generous donation. It will be used for the further development of my free fonts, but it won't affect my decision.
E-mail sent :).
I'd post a Digg article on this or something, but you didn't state what are we supposed to be doing exactly.
"This font may not be distributed or sold -not online nor on any media- without my permission"
So we ask his permission or?
@Anonymous:
I am not on Planet because I am not an Ubuntu member. Feel free to give Jos the attention in whatever manner you can. Thanks for visiting!
Hi, can I translate your post and pass it on differents planets ? Why are you not on planet.ubuntu.com ?
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