A font is fixed… But the fix is banned!
Publishers say that computer users pose a problem for copyright, but that way of conceiving the issue is back to front; it is copyright that poses a problem for computer users.
In a perfect illustration of this, someone fixed a bug in a proprietary piece of software - font software, in this case - and posted his fixed version on his blog for everyone to benefit from.
The copyright holder noticed this and demanded he stop redistributing the font, banning the fix. The helpful neighbour is forced to do this by law, copyright law.
This is sad, because both of these outcomes are bad: asking people to agree not to redistribute fixed versions is bad, because everyone suffers under the problems that remain unfixed. But redistributing the font after agreeing not to is bad too, because making agreements and breaking them is obviously not a good thing to do.
The solution is for font software developers to find ways of making fonts that respect users’ freedom, getting paid in the process, and for users to stop agreeing to these terms which restrict them from getting on with life - by switching to GNU/Linux from their current proprietary operating system, and not using proprietary software any more.
The A font is fixed… But the fix is banned! by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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3 Responses to “A font is fixed… But the fix is banned!”
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I’m the copyright holder to whom you refer above. Do you have any ideas as to how font software developers can “find ways to get paid” while giving their work away?
Any suggestions? What kind of companies do professional font designers work for these days?
@James: They all work for proprietary font vendors, and once every few years Red Hat or the GNOME Foundation will pay for the release of a font family under ethically valid terms.
@Michael: The Free Software Business mailing list - http://www.crynwr.com/fsb/ - has decades of discussions of how to make money while respecting users’ freedom; Tom Lord just posted a new idea this week, in fact :-) And I posted some of my ideas on the Open Font Library wiki. I am determined to get paid to make font software that respects users freedom, and I’m sure if you attend type design conferences in the next few years you’ll see how that works out :-)