Any objection to the OFL?

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 6, 2007

Hi Bill!
Thank you for this message below and you make good points ;-)

The OFL is not a license to use SignWriting itself...SignWriting is  
written by hand or by computer, and is free and open. I am preparing  
a statement about that right now, based on Pharo's suggestion of  
using something like the statement that is located on an IPA site.  
Here is the IPA statement that Pharo had posted before...so it will  
be something like this:

"The International Phonetic Association permits (with no limitations or
licensing restrictions and at no charge in the form of a license fee
or royalties) third parties to use (copy, publicly display, publicly
perform, publish/distribute and create derivative works based thereon)
the IPA symbols and IPA charts as part of or in products such as books
and software/hardware as long as the third party acknowledges the
International Phonetic Association as the copyright owner of the
International Phonetic Alphabet and the IPA charts."


But the OFL License is for the specific symbols that I am creating  
right now in PNG format, called the ISWA, or the International  
SignWriting Alphabet, and the OFL is stating that people are free to  
use the symbols in this ISWA folder, based on the OFL guidelines...so  
it is for software development where programmers will either be using  
those specific PNGs, or possibly creating other type styles of them  
in SVG, or drawing them inside software like Sandy is designing...and  
yes...they are like typefaces in a way because Machado's style of SVG  
SignWriting symbols has a little flare at the tips of the lines that  
is absolutely charming and certainly could be called the Machado  
Typeface of SignWriting symbols!

Take a look at the nice flare in the Machado SVG...

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Val ;-)

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On Jun 6, 2007, at 10:50 AM, Bill Reese wrote:

> Steve,
>
> It's my understanding that fonts aren't the characters of an  
> alphabet or script - they're stylistic representations of those  
> characters.  It's conceivable that someone could create a font of  
> SignWriting that gives it a specific style - such as "Arial" or  
> "Times Romans".  There seems to be no question that anyone creating  
> one should have the right to assign whatever license they want to  
> that font - just as they do with other alphabets and scripts.  I  
> believe the question then becomes, if the OFL is used to assign a  
> license to the characters of an alphabet or script, regardless of  
> style, would it then need to be assigned to all other alphabets or  
> scripts, such as Latin, Cyrillic, Hiragana, Chinese, etc.?
>
> It would seem that SignWriting should be in the same class as  
> those.  SignWriting is used to create written forms of established  
> natural languages the same way Latin characters have been used to  
> create written forms of other established natural languages in the  
> last 70 years or so.
>
> Bill
>
>
> Steve Slevinski wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> We've been discussing licensing issues for SignWriting.  I think  
>> the Open Font License is ideal for the SignWriting symbol sets.
>>
>> You can read the online version:
>> http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php? 
>> site_id=nrsi&item_id=OFL_web
>>
>> Under the OFL, I do not see any negatives and many positives.   
>> This is not a major change compared to what we are doing right now.
>> This licensing is important for widespread adoption in the free  
>> and open source world as well as the proprietary, commercial world.
>> You will be free to use the symbol sets for any type of writing.   
>> You will be free to use the symbol set with software and include  
>> the symbol set as part of the software.  You will be free to  
>> modify the symbol set as long as you release the modified symbol  
>> set under the OFL.  You can redistribute the symbol set almost any  
>> way you want.  The main restriction is that you can't sell the  
>> font by itself.
>>
>> Does anyone have  any concerns?  Please ask questions or read the  
>> license itself.  It's about 1 page long and can be read in about 5  
>> minutes.
>> http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php? 
>> site_id=nrsi&item_id=OFL_web
>>
>> Regards,
>> -Steve
>>
>
>