[Bf-committers] Embedded Bfont violates GPL

Tom M letterrip at gmail.com
Wed Jul 17 21:37:18 CEST 2013


1) Fonts are 'libraries normally distrubted with the OS' therefore the
GPL linking to such libraries is excluded from any GPL linking
restriction

2)  Fonts are trademarked - the renaming can be viewed as requiring
changes to avoid trademark infringement.  People aren't allow to make
changes to other trademarkable items such as the blender logo.  Since
this is true of all aspects subject to trademark protection, and every
GPLed project generally includes trademarkable elements, either all
GPLed projects are in violation of the GPL - or the GPL has trademark
exceptions in fact, even if not explicitly stated.

LetterRip


On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 7:19 AM, IRIE Shinsuke <irieshinsuke at yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Blender's default font (Bfont = DejaVu Sans fonts) is embedded
> in the program binary, so the Bfont is distributed under GPL.
> However, this GPLed DejaVu fonts still inherit the following
> hateful restrictions:
>
> - The Font Software may be modified, altered, or added to, and
>   in particular the designs of glyphs or characters in the Fonts
>   may be modified and additional glyphs or characters may be
>   added to the Fonts, only if the fonts are renamed to names not
>   containing either the words "Bitstream" or the word "Vera".
>
> - The Font Software may be modified, altered, or added to, and
>   in particular the designs of glyphs or characters in the Fonts
>   may be modified and additional glyphs or characters may be
>   added to the Fonts, only if the fonts are renamed to names not
>   containing either the words "Tavmjong Bah" or the word "Arev".
>
> - The Font Software may be sold as part of a larger software
>   package but no copy of one or more of the Font Software
>   typefaces may be sold by itself.
>
> Such "further restrictions" apparently violate the GPL.
>
> To avoid the license violation, Blender has to drop the Bitstream
> Vera derivative fonts (Bfont + Bmonofont) or load these fonts from
> separate font files as runtime data on startup.  The international
> fonts don't cause the problem because they are distributed as
> separate font files in 2.6x/datafiles/fonts/ directory.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> IRIE Shinsuke
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