[Freefont-bugs] License question

[Jason Woolman]

Greetings,

 

I work for a Native American (First Nation) group in Canada. We are looking for font with a character set the includes the IPA extensions utilized by our writing system. We are interested in the GNU FreeFont and would like to make some additions/amendments to the font. During this process questions about licensing and copyright were brought up.

 

A designer we were working with states the GNU fonts looked like three known fonts to her, and as such, their listing by GNU would raise intellectual property issues. She brought up the following arguments:

 

cons: Quality of fonts may be an issue (e.g., poor shaping of letters, missing characters, spacing and other functional problems) and there is no one to appeal to for correction. (It takes time, technical expertise and artistry to get all these things right in a typeface. People who invest their time and experience in that kind of activity usually need to be compensated. There are some exceptions, which I describe below.)

 

cons: Intellectual property (IP) issues arise if the basis for the free font was a design someone else owned the copyright to, i.e., the party offering the font built on someone else's work. In a survey of thousands of fonts on one free-font site, Ascender Corporation found this to be one of the biggest problems. 

 

Can  you tell me how licensing was dealt with?  

 

We would love to work with the FreeFont and rerelease any changes/additions but want to make sure we are legally covered.

 

Cheers,

Jason Woolman

Senior Archivist/RM Specialist

Musqueam First Nation

6735 Salish Drive

Vancouver, BC V6N 4C4

Phone: (604) 269-3346

Fax: (604) 263-4212

address@hidden

 

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