[theme-reviewers] Fonts and Licensing

[chip at chipbennett.net]

Joseph,

> In the area of fonts what I've seen is that many of them do have
> restrictive terms, that are not compatible with the GPL.  As a result
> any time that I see a JS encoded font included with a theme I look for
> licensing info.
>
> As for GPL compatible fonts, I've see the SIL come up more -
> http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=ofl I've
> read through that, chatted with Matt about and looked over
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html and we agreed that fonts
> under the SIL would be fine to include with a theme.

I've been going through this again, so that I can help update the Codex
accordingly (and so that I know what fonts are acceptable for inclusion
when I submit themes).

So, both you and Matt have agreed that SIL Open Font license is acceptable
for repository-hosted themes? That's good! That actually opens things up
quite a bit.

Here are the important parts of the SIL Open Font license:

 - Free to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify,
redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies of the Font
Software

 - Cannot sell unmodified/modified font by itself
 - Redistributed (modified or unmodified) fonts must include same license
 - Cannot use Reserved Font Names without permission

So, that's actually awesome, because I assume that it would mean that
other licenses with identical restrictions would also be considered
acceptable for repository-hosted themes?

To that end, could I get your/Matt's thoughts on the following font
licenses, that have the same terms as the SIL Open Font license, above
(and, as with SIL, are considered by FSF to be "free" fonts)?

 - Arphic
 - Android (Apache 2.0)
 - Bitstream
 - GUST e-Foundry/LPPL (LaTeX)
 - Liberation
 - ParaType Free Font License

See:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal_considerations_for_fonts#Approved_font_licenses

I assume that, if SIL Open Font is acceptable, then so would any other
similar license be acceptable. But, it would be better to get some
official word before I update the Codex.

Thanks!

Chip