View Full Version : There's an elephant in the room: font licensing
I've been looking into this for a while. From what I've read, it's okay to buy a font for inclusion in a distributable app so long as it's embedded in such a way that it can't be reused by a third party. XBMC doesn't support that at present, but might there be a way of, say, bundling the fonts in an xpr? I suspect that's a really dumb idea.
Does anyone have any experience in the matter?
That's something I have been wondering about too. A lot of skins use a commercially available and/or copyrighted fonts, as does mine. What are the chances of trouble when they are distributed through SVN?
Well, I've luckily found a free alternative that's actually decent. If you can do the same, I'd recommend it. Don't fancy facing a few thousand copyright cases rolled into one.
Well, it didn't take long to realise that the "decent" freeware font wasn't that decent after all.
Here's the common licence condition that seems to apply to XBMC:
1.5 Embedding of the Font Software into electronic documents or Internet pages is only permitted under the absolute assurance that the recipient cannot use the Font Software to edit or create a new document (read-only). It must be ensured that the Font Software cannot be fully or partially extracted from said documents.
jmarshall
2008-07-17, 00:55
I can guarantee that we'll never do this.
If XBMC can extract it to display it (or any computer program whatsoever) then a human can extract it as well.
Guess that means OEM licences are the only real way to go. Bet they're cheap. :no:
There are a handful of open source fonts that would work. A few are linked from here:
http://ifacethoughts.net/2007/10/02/open-source-fonts/
In some cases you might be able to contact a font designer and ask them if you can bundle their font with your skin. Some designers would be fine with it while others would not. Note that in many cases the designer has embedded the license into the font, so you just need to look at the properties to see if they have a suitable license.
OS's have a font "library"... why not rely on the system fonts and let the use choose any that they'd like? Thus, don't distro any fonts with XBMC (except for XBOX).
OS's have a font "library"... why not rely on the system fonts and let the use choose any that they'd like? Thus, don't distro any fonts with XBMC (except for XBOX).
because skins are designed with a certain feel and allowing people to use any old font will wreck that feel
Well, I've luckily found a free alternative that's actually decent. If you can do the same, I'd recommend it.
Yeah I've been checking out a lot of free alternatives for some time now. And there definitely are some really nice ones. I have yet to find one that really works in this particular case though. The fonts are either too condensed, or not condensed enough, too bold or not bold enough, or the character set is incomplete. Maybe I'm just picky :)
In general however it seems the amount of "fantasy fonts" hugely outnumbers the truly useful ones.
Gamester17
2008-07-17, 14:54
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/25/2124251&from=rss
https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/
Those are just a few out of millions of open source or free to use fonts out there, ...sorry but why anyone would want to use non-free fonts in an open source project is beyond me.
PS! No matter which way you go make sure it is an unicode font (http://www.unifont.org/fontguide/) to make your skin support internationalization and localization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization that way eastern european and asian speaking people can use your skin as well.
Internationalization and localization is very important in any software IMHO.
_djh:
http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/20-best-license-free-official-fonts
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/10/11/17-more-free-quality-fonts/
also, browse smashingmagazine.com for a huge load of great free fonts.
Just a suggestion:
http://www.fontspace.com
It looks great.
Typically, the one font from all those sources that fit the bill was... open type, which I don't think XBMC supports.
Others came close but let themselves down with wrongly-sized glyphs (i.e. one letter is slightly taller or shorter than the others), which seems to be a common trait among free fonts. You only need look at Aeon's current menu font for an example.
it only makes sense that commercial fonts are higher quality. This is usually the norm for everything, with just a few exceptions (hint hint nude nudge)
ewequeone
2008-07-23, 17:04
hrrrm... nude nudging ...
*steps away from pike*
(hint hint nude nudge)
it only makes sense that commercial fonts are higher quality. This is usually the norm for everything, with just a few exceptions (hint hint nude nudge)
Quoted for truth.
Typically, the one font from all those sources that fit the bill was... open type, which I don't think XBMC supports.
I can help you convert it to a working format.
Give me the url and I will give it a try.
Nuka1195
2008-07-23, 23:59
opentype fonts should work
Even if open source fonts are included in the skins, the skin-author can always recommend a commercial font. Then it's up to the users to buy the recommended font. If they want.