Any objection to the OFL?

[Steve Slevinski]

Hi Bill,

Sorry for the confusion of terms.  When I used the phrase "symbol sets" 
I was referring to the specific PNG and SVG files.  I should have used 
the term font.  I'd love to see additional styles for the SignWriting 
symbols.  As long as the new font is a new creation, it can be under 
whatever license their creator wishes.  If the new font is a 
modification of an OFL font, it may only be released under the OFL.

It may be a little confusing to label a collection of PNGs as a font.  
However, 2 matters to consider.  First, we are using the PNGs as a 
font.  Second, we are heading in the direction of a proper font with 
Unicode support.

When I was discussing the matter on the OFL list, this topic came up.  
We agreed that the PNGs can be considered a font.  There was general 
support for a release under the OFL.  There was even talk about an 
article on Linux.com about the news.

Regards,
-Steve


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
>>
>
>
>