Unintended Consequences of Using GPL Fonts

innocent_white_lamb writes "An interesting discussion has surfaced on the Scribus mailing list. Simply stated, it appears that using GPL-licensed fonts in a document makes your document subject to the GPL. There are a lot of consequences here, such as internal corporate communications. It appears to make the use of GPL fonts undesirable in almost any document." Yes, it sounds crazy, but the experimental font-exception addition to the GPL (linked from the discussion) lends the idea some credence.

Comments

Seems a little silly to me.

[Future Man 3000]

Just my opinion, but a document isn't a program, and when you distribute a document you are ipso fatso distributing the source (or everything you need to "compile and run" the document.)

While I would like to see clarification, this seems like an attack on the GPL...

Doesn't make sense

[TelJanin]

Using a GPL-ed font in a document would be just like using a GPL-ed IDE, I would think. Why would the license of the tools affect the license of the finished product?

GNU Privacy Guard

[Shimmer]

So if I encrypt using GPG, does that mean all my e-mails are covered by the GPL? Yikes.

XML

[Uber Banker]

A little off-the-wall here:

If a document's contents were in a file which mapped to a style sheet, a la HTML and CSS, or perhaps the more general purpose XML, then the contents (HTML) could be GPL conditions free, but the overall presentation would be subject to it.

I hate being a perfect test case.

[captnitro]

So somebody clear this up for me. I'm a graphic designer, and in the past have enjoyed the Bitstream Vera line of GPL fonts, though usually I find them too 'plain' to use in much design at all.

Theoretically, do I need to be distributing the my Fireworks/PS files themselves or just the fonts? Obviously I'm a bit confused as to how this works, and hadn't considered that the GPL would apply to my "documents", many of which I've sold.

Back to Frutiger.

Clarifying vs. Changing vs. Lawyer Paranoia

[billstewart]

The font exception wording does clarify that using the fonts doesn't mean that all your text are belong to us. I don't see that meaningfully saying that without the exception, that you've got legal problems, though it may be useful to calm down some lawyers, especially armchair lawyers or lawyers who are already paranoid about contaminating their intellectual property.

In some cases, a font is a program, especially in Postscript; in other cases, it's a set of bitmaps or curves or equations. Using a GPLed font *could* require that if you're including the binaries of the font in a document you give somebody, you might be required to tell them where to get source code for the font (if the font is the kind of program where there's a meaningful difference between the source and the binary, which isn't usually the case for Postscript fonts.) At worst, some people could argue that it could require that if you've printed a document using the GPL'd font, that you provide information on how to get the font program, but that's somewhat like saying that if you use a GPL'd version of printf, then anything you print out needs to include a GPL notice and information on where to get the source code.

So calm down. This isn't a case of GNU/RMS being expansively greedy for ownership of everything everybody writes or prints. On the other hand, if you do modify GPL'd fonts, then GPL coverage of the modified versions is a perfectly reasonably thing.

Re:Presensation

[anthony_dipierro]

You can't embed the font file itself or substantial pieces of the data that created it in a document (such as a PDF) without permission from the owner, and it is there that GPL exceptions may be needed to prevent the entire document from becoming GPL.

If you're just embedding the font without any changes in a document, it seems clear to me that this is an aggregation, and not the creation of a separate work. From the GPL, "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."

Re:Intellectual Property for Fonts is Very Complex

[NutscrapeSucks]

Fonts have a whole bunch of bizarre rules covering the intellectual property involved with them,

Bizarre rules, but not as bizarre as "The Font maker has copyright rights over your book because you used their font". Whis is basically the 'bizarre' GPL argument here. If Adobe or Bitstream claimed this, they would be laughed at by the publishing industry.

I think the main issue is that the Free Software faction has convinced themselves that "Derived Works" is much more extensive than it actually is, and that leads to all sorts of ridiclous conclusions.