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Note on GPL compatibility and fonts (was: Re: [pygame] 1.7 releases?)



This will be my last mail on this subject. The issues of GPL
compatibility (of any license) is documented *extensively* elsewhere,
and this list is for Pygame.

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 13:40 +0200, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:
> Joe Wreschnig <piman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> [snip]
> > > That reads pretty clearly as "use it, change it, attribute it,
> > > just don't charge directly for it"
> > 
> > Which is GPL-incompatible.
> 
> I'm not really arguing against you here -- but could you clarify how
> this is GPL-incompatible? The GPL is a bit confusing to me at times...
> 
> The Bitstream page says "The fonts cannot be packaged by themselves
> for sale, but can be sold with any software"...
> 
> Do you mean that you can't distribute it bundled with GPL'ed code? Or
> that you can't redistribute it under the GPL? The latter would also go
> for, say, Python, but the Python license has explicitly been accepted
> as GPL compatible...

The font license contains a requirement that is not a requirement of the
GPL (viz, the one I didn't cut). Due to this, you cannot distribute the
font "under the terms of the GPL" which is the requirement for creating
a GPL-derived work. Therefore the font license is GPL-incompatible.

The Python 2.3 license contains no such terms.

> Just wondering.
> 
> > The only thing that saves it in most eyes is that you don't link the
> > font to the GPLd code, so it's still legal.  Stronger
> > interpretations of the GPL would disagree and say that the GPL
> > speaks of derived works (and so dependencies in general), not
> > linking.
> 
> But the software would then be "derivative" of the font, not vice
> versa? And the font license here does *not* speak of derivative works,
> does it? (Not in the GPL sense, anyway...)

If I make a game, and include the current Pygame font, Pygame, my own
code and graphics, and shared GPL (or GPL-compatible) code from other
people, I can license the resulting work under the terms of the GPL,
since every license involved is GPL-compatible. In my view, the "game"
is a derivative work of Pygame (which includes the Pygame font), as well
as everything else I borrowed code from or linked to.

Some people say that no, the game isn't a derivative work of the data,
only the code involved, because the data can be replaced. However,
libraries can also be replaced with one with an equivalent API. So I
don't see how this position is tenable without also claiming linking
also doesn't create a derived work, which is a *much* weaker position on
the GPL than most people take (though some do). It's definitely a weaker
position on the GPL than Pygame has taken in the past, otherwise
pygame.mixer would use something that didn't suck to load MP3s.

> I thought GNOME was very GNU/GPL-oriented -- how come they include
> Bitstream Vera in their releases if it's GPL incompatible?

You'll have to ask GNOME that. The impression I got was that as long as
they license was a free software license (and I'm not challenging the
Vera license on that grounds, yet), they would opt for technical quality
over GPL compatibility. There are lots of GPL-incompatible free software
licenses.
-- 
Joe Wreschnig <piman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

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