RE: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal

David, all, 

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and the opinion expressed below is my own
opinion, does not represent the position of the company and is not
intended to be used as a legal advice.

I would suggest that for the sake of keeping this discussion productive
and to the point we should try to seek a legal opinion whenever one is
considered relevant. I would also like to say that in order to have a
productive discussion all references brought as pertinent should be
examined in its entirety, and not based on the creative selective quotes
(e.g. quoting a statement that is made as a part of conditional
sentence). 

With regards to the GPU license version 2
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html#SEC3), we need to examine the
whole text of section 7, where the intent of the license and limitations
are clearly defined. In particular:

"7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute
so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and
any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not
distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would
not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who
receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you
could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from
distribution of the Program."

This section clearly defines the subject - *the Program* (which, is in
this case, the web browser implementation) and the condition - "If you
cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under
this License and any other pertinent obligations ...". According to W3C
RF policy, you have all necessary rights that are granted to you to
implement *the Program* and to permit royalty-free redistribution of
*the Program*. None of the conditions of the W3C patent license imposed
on you would contradict the conditions of the GPL license, and would in
any way limit your ability to distribute *the Program*.

These patent rights may not be granted to someone who extracts pieces of
the code from *the Program* and than uses it elsewhere in another
program. According to the GPL license - "You are not responsible for
enforcing compliance by third parties to this License." (GPL v.2,
sec.6).

Best regards,
Vladimir


> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-style-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of David Woolley
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 3:25 AM
> To: www-style@w3.org
> Cc: www-style@w3.org
> Subject: Re: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal
> 
> 
> Levantovsky, Vladimir wrote:
> > 
> > I am sorry, I do not see a connection here. They sure can take your 
> > code and use it for whatever purposes, including the non-browser 
> > projects, but it doesn't mean that they have to inherit all patent 
> > licenses with it. For example, FreeType has GPL implementation of 
> > TrueType hints. The code is freely available but anyone who wish to 
> > use it would have to get their own patent license.
> 
> You cannot give them your code without violating the GPL, or 
> similar licences.  As copyright owner, you could change the 
> licence, but you might rely on GPLed code that isn't yours, 
> and even if you didn't, some distributors, and many potential 
> future contributors, may refuse to touch your software.
> 
> >  
> > Why is it any different with your code?
> 
>  From clause 7 of version 2 of the GPL (copyright Free 
> Software Foundation):
> 
> > may not distribute the Program at all.  For example, if a patent
> > license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the 
> Program by
> > all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through 
> you, then
> > the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
> > refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
> 
> The bit before makes it clear that this is triggered if royalties are 
> required for any permitted use, under the GPL
> -- 
> David Woolley
> Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
> RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
> that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 17:04:39 UTC