discussion over licensing fonts


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Last updated at 6:37 am UTC on 25 May 2001

Stefan Hello, I think Squeak users may have trouble finding a valid license. The distribution doesn't come with one (AFAIK). And, more important: the license on the Squeak Website is on the name of Apple, while the copyrights are now of Disney (?) Or am I mistaking? Can someone clear this up for me, because I'd like to read it (yes serious!! :-). Greets, Stefan agree > I think Squeak users may have trouble finding a valid license. The > distribution doesn't come with one (AFAIK). And, more important: the > license on the Squeak Website is on the name of Apple, while the > copyrights are now of Disney (?) Or am I mistaking? Apple is apparently the owner of the base Squeak system (and the 68000 Smalltalk system on which it was directly based). The license permitted the creation of derivative works created therefrom, subject to the terms of the license, which further provided a right to distribute only subject to the following: "You may distribute and sublicense such Modified Software only under the terms of a valid, binding license that makes no representations or warranties on behalf of Apple, and is no less protective of Apple and Apple's rights than this License." and further providing: "If the Modified Software contains modifications, overwrites, replacements, deletions, additions, or ports to new platforms of: (1) the methods of existing class objects or their existing relationships, or (2) any part of the virtual machine, then ***for so long as the Modified Software is distributed or sublicensed to others, such modified, overwritten, replaced, deleted, added and ported portions of the Modified Software must be made publicly available, preferably by means of download from a website, at no charge under the terms set forth in Exhibit A below.***" Exhibit A, in turn provides: "EXHIBIT A License. You may copy, install, use, modify and create derivative works of the [Modified Software] "Changed Software" (but you may not modify or create derivative works of the [Fonts]) and distribute and sublicense such Changed Software, provided however, that if the Changed Software contains modifications, overwrites, replacements, deletions, additions, or ports to new platforms of: (1) the methods of existing classes objects or their existing relationships, or (2) any part of the virtual machine, then for so long as the Changed Software is distributed or sublicensed to others, such modified, overwritten, replaced, deleted, added and ported portions of the Changed Software must be made publicly available, preferably by means of download from a website, at no charge under the terms of a license that makes no representations or warranties on behalf of any third party, is no less protective of [the licensors of the Modified Software] and its licensors, and contains the terms set forth in Exhibit A below [which should contain the terms of this Exhibit A]. You may distribute and sublicense the [Fonts] only as a part of and for use with Changed Software, and not as a part of or for use with Changed Software that is distributed or sublicensed for a fee or for other valuable consideration." Accordingly, Disney's (and many of our) contributions to the code, to the extent they are Modified Software, and to the extent distributed to third parties, are subject to the Exhibit A License. Some purely original code may or may not be within its aegis, but may well fall within its scope by operation of law or implied fact. It might not be a bad idea to consider which code in Squeak 2.6 might not be Modified Software, and to assure that express licenses are obtained and granted. It may be fairly difficult to provide such a package without changing the "the methods of existing classes, objects or their existing relationships" (the latter being the trick to avoid) or making "additions" to them, so most contributions I have considered (in an admittedly casual reflection) are probably Modified Software or Changed Software. Now, I suppose that the license permits creation of a new license for present day Squeak, with a variation of language to make clearer the relationship between Apple, Disney, third-party contributors and you. For example, Disney might contemplate issuing a new Squeak License, which has broader coverage than the definition of Modified Software (perhaps akin to GPL, Mozilla, Jini or Apple's new OSS licenses – taking care not to extend the virus too broadly, leaving outs for entirely independent packages that are not Modified Software), which may be "at least as protective" of Apple and prior contributors as the Apple license. BSD may not satisfy the constraints, in that it may be read not to include all of the terms of Exhibit A. I leave that decision entirely within the hands of Disney and its excellent array of IP and computer lawyers. [On the other hand, if you want to start a movement, write your own proposed license, and offer a modification subject only to your license. If accepted, something might happen.] It remains unclear to me that any such effort is necessary at this time, and that the implied-in-law or implied-in-fact licenses derived thereby are adequately clear. This is not to say the problem isn't worth revisiting from time to time, only that the concerns to which I am replying appear somewhat overstated. The following is somewhat obligatory so I can continue to practice law and hack in my spare time, please bear with me: The preceding survey of the license is hardly a comprehensive study necessary to arrive at any reasonable legal conclusions, and it is offered solely to provide an outline for your individual analyses and study of these issues. None of this should be construed as legal advice, which would require the application of applicable law to the particular facts and details of the software you are actually using. To the extent you have any concern at all about this matter, you should consult a qualified attorney to examine your particular facts and details and rely upon his or her advices. Bob Hmmm. So, if one wants to charge for a Squeak derivative one must expunge the Squeak-supplied fonts from the image, replacing them with new fonts. Interesting... Bob Jarvis The Timken Company Alan Bob – Almost. The "system font" of Squeak is one that we found on the network and that allows unlimited distribution through derivatives. The other fonts are subject to their various restrictions. When we get around to it, we plan to make a set of TrueType fonts that can travel with Squeak (as can anyone who wishes right now). Cheers, Alan agree Of course, all of Donald Knuth's Computer Modern fonts (and the Concrete Math fonts, which are quite interesting) are in the public domain, and bitmap font versions are available everywhere or easily generated via MetaFont. Blue Sky Research (not Blue Sky Software) has made Postscript fonts for the entire CM (and Concrete M) set available, either by putting it in the public domain or a very liberal license. ftp://ftp.bluesky.com/pub/fonts/Computer_Modern_PostScript/ (They may have also made the AMS fonts available, but I don't recall if they were free). While some of them didn't age so well, I still am quite fond of many of the glyphs. And we can always ask Adobe to throw us a bone, at least with the Postscript standard fonts :-) Marcus On Thu, Oct 28, 1999 at 09:21:36PM -0400, agree@carltonfields.com wrote: > And we can always ask Adobe to throw us a bone, at least with the > Postscript standard fonts :-) The 35 Postscript 1 standard-fonts were donated to the the GNU-Project by URW (http://www.urw.de). http://www.gimp.org/urw-fonts.tar.gz Marcus – Marcus Denker marcus@ira.uka.de phone@home:(0721)614235 @work:(0721)608-2749 Imitating paper on a computer screen is like tearing the wings off a 747 and using it as a bus on the highway. – Ted Nelson Andrew What is meant by "donated"? They were given a license to GNU it? Does that license readily extend to Squeak, or would that virally require that we GNU Squeak? Perhaps we ought to try to get our own gift, so we can make it available subject to the Squeak license? Alan Marcus – Does "donate" mean more than the fonts can be used in Squeak? – does it also mean that they can be "passed along" from app builders to app builders and to users? When we were looking for fonts before, we found many that were "free" to use, but had license restrictions for propagation ... Cheers, Alan Marcus On Fri, Oct 29, 1999 at 04:23:55AM -0800, Alan Kay wrote: > Marcus – > > Does "donate" mean more than the fonts can be used in Squeak? – does it > also mean that they can be "passed along" from app builders to app builders > and to users? > File "Fontmap" (part of urw-fonts.tar.gz) contains the following copyright-notice: % % Fonts contributed by: % URW++ Design and Development Incorporated % Poppenbuetteler Bogen 29A % D-22399 Hamburg % Germany % tel. +49 (40) 60 60 50 % fax +49 (40) 60 60 51 11 % for distribution under the GNU License and Aladdin Free Public License. % See the notice at the head of this Fontmap file for licensing terms. % Each of these fonts is individually covered by the license: % for licensing purposes, they are not "part of" any larger entity. % The following notice applies to these fonts: % % Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1994 by URW. % So the Fonts are licensed under the GNU GPL or the Aladdin License: Aladdin License: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/doc/Public.htm GPL: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html The Aladdin Free Public License allows free use, copying, and distribution by end users, but does not allow commercial distribution. So Aladdin-Licensed fonts can not be included in Squeak. But I think it should be possible to include the URW-Fonts when they are GPled. The copyright-notice says: Each of these fonts is individually covered by the license: for licensing purposes, they are not "part of" any larger entity. So part 2b) of the GPL (the famous "GPL Virus") should be no problem: b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. One Problem remains: the single .afm - Files contain following copyright: StartFontMetrics 3.0 RETURN) Comment Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1996 by URW Comment Creation Date: 2/16/1996 Comment See the file PUBLIC (Aladdin Free Public License) for license conditions Strange. We should ask Aladdin (L. Peter Deutsch) or URW under which license the fonts really are. Marcus – Marcus Denker marcus@ira.uka.de phone@home:(0721)614235 @work:(0721)608-2749 Alan Thanks Marcus – Well, this is the problem with most of these licences that "aren't transitive". Presumably, a way around this might be to just have URLs for these fonts in Squeak with an automatic mechanism for retrieving them only when each individual user says they want them? This way, they aren't actually shipped with Squeak, but can be gotten anytime a Squeak is on the net .... How about it Andrew? Cheers, Alan agree > —–Original Message—– > From: MIME :marcus@ira.uka.de > Sent: Friday, October 29, 1999 10:33 AM > To: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu > % for distribution under the GNU License and Aladdin Free > Public License. Red flag – these licenses don't work well together. It is VERY difficult in reality (if a legal situation came up) to reconcile the requirements of the two. > So part 2b) of the GPL (the famous "GPL Virus") should be no problem: Not no problem, but not necessarily unworkable. We would have to be fairly careful. It may be necessary to distribute the fonts separately, with their own license language, files and stuff, and then have each user import it to avoid the virus. > Strange. We should ask Aladdin (L. Peter Deutsch) or URW under which > license the fonts really are. Or better yet, see if we can get URW to give us a Squeak-ing license! One of my favorite things to do as an attorney when a client comes asking about hypertechnical ways to "get around" IP, is simply to suggest, "why don't you ask them if you can have permission to do that?" This isn't always the right advice, but it often is. Consent is the only 100% absolute defense in this business – if you prove consent, you always, always win. The owner of a copyright can do what he wants, and if he is willing to give a license under the Squeak terms, we can incorporate it without having to deal with RMS, Peter or anyone. Note that there are presently pending cases where products are being withheld because of GNU licensing conflicts. Let's be careful. RMS designed GNU so that the world would be GNU only, and recent activity seems to suggest he meant it. I agree that GNU can be circumvented in a manner favorable to what we want to do (and the only thing we can do): distribute Squeak under the terms of the Squeak license, but someone ought to be able to say, "yes" to the straightforward question, and not an indirect basis for a legal argument, so we don't actually have to lawyer this thing to get to an answer. ### > Well, this is the problem with most of these licences that "aren't > transitive". Presumably, a way around this might be to just > have URLs for > these fonts in Squeak with an automatic mechanism for > retrieving them only > when each individual user says they want them? This way, they aren't > actually shipped with Squeak, but can be gotten anytime a > Squeak is on the > net .... > > How about it Andrew? I think something very much like Alan's solution can be made to work. I will carefully study the licenses over the weekend to see what I can recommend. [It is interesting how complex these issues are turning out these days – I have written five open souce compliance opinions this month alone!] The safest and surest way at the end of the day is always to just ask for permission. In my experience, open source folk are very friendly, utterly flattered you are asking and, unless they are themselves bound by GNU or otherwise, they almost always say "yes." These licenses ARE inconsistent, but if products are shipped independently, then integrated only by an end-user who does not subsequently distribute (this is the rub – reminding them to strip images of the files before giving someone else a copy), something can be done. Maybe other things can also be done – I'll ponder that as well. Markus Andrew, I did some more research on the URW-Fonts: They are GPLed. No Aladdin license. After some searching on the net I found the latest "original" Aladdin distribution of these fonts. All data-files in this distribution contain the following: Comment Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1996 by URW Comment Creation Date: 2/16/1996 Comment See the file COPYING (GNU General Public License) for licen se conditions. or: Copyright 1997 URW Software. See file COPYING for license or: % Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1994 by URW % URW Software, Copyright 1994 by URW % See the file COPYING (GNU General Public License) for license conditions. From the GPL: In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. Is the Squeak-Image a "distribution-Medium"? We should add a method like "Utilities writeFontsToDisk" – than the image+vm is nothing more than a "zip" or "tar" with a graphical frontend. Of course Squeak can not only write the fonts to the disk, but even use them, but the use ("running the programm") is not restricted by the GPL. Marcus – Marcus Denker marcus@ira.uka.de phone@home:(0721)614235 @work:(0721)608-2749 Andrew >Andrew, > >I did some more research on the URW-Fonts: > >They are GPLed. No Aladdin license. After some searching on the >net I found the latest "original" Aladdin distribution of these >fonts. All data-files in this distribution contain the following: > > Comment Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1996 by URW > Comment Creation Date: 2/16/1996 > Comment See the file COPYING (GNU General Public License) for licen >se conditions. > >or: > > Copyright 1997 URW Software. See file COPYING for license > >or: > > % Copyright URW Software, Copyright 1994 by URW > % URW Software, Copyright 1994 by URW > % See the file COPYING (GNU General Public License) for license conditions. The fact that they are licensed to some for use with GPL does not mean that the fonts themselves are always subject to GPL. I believe that the set of fonts that came with my Apple are not GPL'd, but licensed to me subject to the Apple license. A copyright owner may do this – license to person "A" under one license agreement and to person "B" under another license agreement. Of course, once the original owner incorporates revisions that are GPL'd, the owner is no longer free to do so. This wouldn't have happened with URW, which has no source and is probably did not incorporate changes (or we wouldn't care whether we got an earlier version if it did). Should we decide we need them, URW might be talked into simply letting us have the fonts solely for use with Squeak and Modified Works under the Squeak license, particularly if asked by one of our luminaries. This would be the clearest, best way, to use these fonts if available – no strings for distributions of Squeak – no strings for subsequent distributions by Squeak users. > >From the GPL: > > In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program > with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of > a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under > the scope of this License. > >Is the Squeak-Image a "distribution-Medium"? We should add a method like >"Utilities writeFontsToDisk" – than the image+vm is nothing more than a >"zip" or "tar" with a graphical frontend. >Of course Squeak can not only write the fonts to the disk, but even use >them, but the use ("running the programm") is not restricted by the GPL The problem, of course, is that you really don't know for sure until a judge or jury tells you so. Representing you, I believe I'd have a fair chance making that argument to a court, given the totality of the circumstances, but I couldn't guarantee success. Ultimately, the objects created (which are stored in the image) will be impacted by the work, and I am not sure the extent, if at all, those other objects would be themselves subject to the GPL. Even if we won, in particular, the GPL, like a virus, might be deemed to extend to other portions of the image as those other portions begin to incorporate stored derivatives of the fonts in bitmaps and otherwise. Bad Karma. GPL and other licenses really don't mix unless the two products are truly and forever separable. (Indeed, GPL makes no sense at all for fonts). This was, in fact, the intent of the author, RMS, who wanted to arrange that everything would ultimately be GPL'd. I believe RMS considers this language to mean separate files on a disk; and does consider two files "merged" by a linker to be a derivative work (which is why he wrote LGPL). But his view is no more or less authoritative at the end of the day as to its legal meaning than yours or mine. I have written opinions for clients suggesting that they distribute GPL'd stuff as independent files on a disk, rather than merging via linker or other fashion – although those clients principal concern was an obligation to disclose the separate stuff. Indeed, if subject available to us only under GPL, the single best bet may be to distribute the fonts as a simple file or files and make loading and extracting as painless and easy as possible. So here is my question – and why GPL'ing a font is not something I expect URW to take as a religious point. if we take only subject to GPL, how exactly do we comply with the obligation to make available or simultaneously distribute the "source code" for the fonts?