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diff --git a/fonts/ubuntu-font-family-0.80/LICENCE-FAQ.txt b/fonts/ubuntu-font-family-0.80/LICENCE-FAQ.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..776a25e --- /dev/null +++ b/fonts/ubuntu-font-family-0.80/LICENCE-FAQ.txt @@ -0,0 +1,177 @@ + Ubuntu Font Family Licensing FAQ + + Stylistic Foundations + + The Ubuntu Font Family is the first time that a libre typeface has been + designed professionally and explicitly with the intent of developing a + public and long-term community-based development process. + + When developing an open project, it is generally necessary to have firm + foundations: a font needs to maintain harmony within itself even across + many type designers and writing systems. For the [1]Ubuntu Font Family, + the process has been guided with the type foundry Dalton Maag setting + the project up with firm stylistic foundation covering several + left-to-right scripts: Latin, Greek and Cyrillic; and right-to-left + scripts: Arabic and Hebrew (due in 2011). + + With this starting point the community will, under the supervision of + [2]Canonical and [3]Dalton Maag, be able to build on the existing font + sources to expand their character coverage. Ultimately everybody will + be able to use the Ubuntu Font Family in their own written languages + across the whole of Unicode (and this will take some time!). + + Licensing + + The licence chosen by any free software project is one of the + foundational decisions that sets out how derivatives and contributions + can occur, and in turn what kind of community will form around the + project. + + Using a licence that is compatible with other popular licences is a + powerful constraint because of the [4]network effects: the freedom to + share improvements between projects allows free software to reach + high-quality over time. Licence-proliferation leads to many + incompatible licences, undermining the network effect, the freedom to + share and ultimately making the libre movement that Ubuntu is a part of + less effective. For all kinds of software, writing a new licence is not + to be taken lightly and is a choice that needs to be thoroughly + justified if this path is taken. + + Today it is not clear to Canonical what the best licence for a font + project like the Ubuntu Font Family is: one that starts life designed + by professionals and continues with the full range of community + development, from highly commercial work in new directions to curious + beginners' experimental contributions. The fast and steady pace of the + Ubuntu release cycle means that an interim libre licence has been + necessary to enable the consideration of the font family as part of + Ubuntu 10.10 operating system release. + + Before taking any decision on licensing, Canonical as sponsor and + backer of the project has reviewed the many existing licenses used for + libre/open fonts and engaged the stewards of the most popular licenses + in detailed discussions. The current interim licence is the first step + in progressing the state-of-the-art in licensing for libre/open font + development. + + The public discussion must now involve everyone in the (comparatively + new) area of the libre/open font community; including font users, + software freedom advocates, open source supporters and existing libre + font developers. Most importantly, the minds and wishes of professional + type designers considering entering the free software business + community must be taken on board. + + Conversations and discussion has taken place, privately, with + individuals from the following groups (generally speaking personally on + behalf of themselves, rather than their affiliations): + * [5]SIL International + * [6]Open Font Library + * [7]Software Freedom Law Center + * [8]Google Font API + + Document embedding + + One issue highlighted early on in the survey of existing font licences + is that of document embedding. Almost all font licences, both free and + unfree, permit embedding a font into a document to a certain degree. + Embedding a font with other works that make up a document creates a + "combined work" and copyleft would normally require the whole document + to be distributed under the terms of the font licence. As beautiful as + the font might be, such a licence makes a font too restrictive for + useful general purpose digital publishing. + + The situation is not entirely unique to fonts and is encountered also + with tools such as GNU Bison: a vanilla GNU GPL licence would require + anything generated with Bison to be made available under the terms of + the GPL as well. To avoid this, Bison is [9]published with an + additional permission to the GPL which allows the output of Bison to be + made available under any licence. + + The conflict between licensing of fonts and licensing of documents, is + addressed in two popular libre font licences, the SIL OFL and GNU GPL: + * [10]SIL Open Font Licence: When OFL fonts are embedded in a + document, the OFL's terms do not apply to that document. (See + [11]OFL-FAQ for details. + * [12]GPL Font Exception: The situation is resolved by granting an + additional permission to allow documents to not be covered by the + GPL. (The exception is being reviewed). + + The Ubuntu Font Family must also resolve this conflict, ensuring that + if the font is embedded and then extracted it is once again clearly + under the terms of its libre licence. + + Long-term licensing + + Those individuals involved, especially from Ubuntu and Canonical, are + interested in finding a long-term libre licence that finds broad favour + across the whole libre/open font community. The deliberation during the + past months has been on how to licence the Ubuntu Font Family in the + short-term, while knowingly encouraging everyone to pursue a long-term + goal. + * [13]Copyright assignment will be required so that the Ubuntu Font + Family's licensing can be progressively expanded to one (or more) + licences, as best practice continues to evolve within the + libre/open font community. + * Canonical will support and fund legal work on libre font licensing. + It is recognised that the cost and time commitments required are + likely to be significant. We invite other capable parties to join + in supporting this activity. + + The GPL version 3 (GPLv3) will be used for Ubuntu Font Family build + scripts and the CC-BY-SA for associated documentation and non-font + content: all items which do not end up embedded in general works and + documents. + +Ubuntu Font Licence + + For the short-term only, the initial licence is the [14]Ubuntu Font + License (UFL). This is loosely inspired from the work on the SIL + OFL 1.1, and seeks to clarify the issues that arose during discussions + and legal review, from the perspective of the backers, Canonical Ltd. + Those already using established licensing models such as the GPL, OFL + or Creative Commons licensing should have no worries about continuing + to use them. The Ubuntu Font Licence (UFL) and the SIL Open Font + Licence (SIL OFL) are not identical and should not be confused with + each other. Please read the terms precisely. The UFL is only intended + as an interim license, and the overriding aim is to support the + creation of a more suitable and generic libre font licence. As soon as + such a licence is developed, the Ubuntu Font Family will migrate to + it—made possible by copyright assignment in the interium. Between the + OFL 1.1, and the UFL 1.0, the following changes are made to produce the + Ubuntu Font Licence: + * Clarification: + + 1. Document embedding (see [15]embedding section above). + 2. Apply at point of distribution, instead of receipt + 3. Author vs. copyright holder disambiguation (type designers are + authors, with the copyright holder normally being the funder) + 4. Define "Propagate" (for internationalisation, similar to the GPLv3) + 5. Define "Substantially Changed" + 6. Trademarks are explicitly not transferred + 7. Refine renaming requirement + + Streamlining: + 8. Remove "not to be sold separately" clause + 9. Remove "Reserved Font Name(s)" declaration + + A visual demonstration of how these points were implemented can be + found in the accompanying coloured diff between SIL OFL 1.1 and the + Ubuntu Font Licence 1.0: [16]ofl-1.1-ufl-1.0.diff.html + +References + + 1. http://font.ubuntu.com/ + 2. http://www.canonical.com/ + 3. http://www.daltonmaag.com/ + 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect + 5. http://scripts.sil.org/ + 6. http://openfontlibrary.org/ + 7. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ + 8. http://code.google.com/webfonts + 9. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF + 10. http://scripts.sil.org/OFL_web + 11. http://scripts.sil.org/OFL-FAQ_web + 12. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FontException + 13. https://launchpad.net/~uff-contributors + 14. http://font.ubuntu.com/ufl/ubuntu-font-licence-1.0.txt + 15. http://font.ubuntu.com/ufl/FAQ.html#embedding + 16. http://font.ubuntu.com/ufl/ofl-1.1-ufl-1.0.diff.html |