GNU FreeFont as Web Font

The GPL and your web site

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The GPL license permits the use of GNU FreeFont binary files of release

20100919 or later as Web fonts with the CSS @font-face technology.

Note that releases of the fonts earlier than 20100919 *do not* contain

adequate license information, and *must not* be used as Web fonts.

We will refer to the releases dated 20100919 or later as "licensed releases".

Proper use of licensed releases of GPL FreeFont with this technology does

not in itself incur the requirements of the GPL, either on the Web page

from which the font is referenced, or the Web site that hosts the font file.

From the point of view of the GPL, the @font-face technology is a distribution

system of font files.  According to the GPL, the files must be delivered with

intact notifications of the license, and of where to get the original source

files.  Furthermore, if the files are modified in any way, a notice must be

delivered of who modified the files on what date, and what modifications

were made.

The licensed release font binary files as packaged on the GNU FreeFont

download page have embedded within them the license and origin notices

required to re-distribute them unmodified.

Software for reading the contents of font files is readily available for

anybody who wishes to look at the embedded notices.

Using the fonts without modifications

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If you simply distribute the TrueType, OpenType, or WOFF files of licensed

releases as packaged at the GNU FreeFont download site, the requirements of

the GPL are already fulfilled.

Modifying the fonts for use as Web fonts

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You may wish to modify the fonts for use as web fonts.

For example, perhaps your site needs only a portion of the font's glyphs. 

As the fonts are very large, it may improve loading speed very much to

cut out unneeded parts of the font.

If you provide modified versions of the fonts, you must take care to

satisfy the GPL stipulation that two kinds of notices must be provided

with any distribution of FreeFont.  These are

   1) the original GPL license and notifications of origin

   2) a description of modifications made to the font: who, when, what.

This information *must* be present in the font binary files delivered

from the web site.

There is more than one way to satisfy the GPL.

The simplest strategy would be the following:

Leave undisturbed the original "TTF Names" fields of the licensed release

font binaries:

	Version

	Copyright

	Manufacturer

	Vendor

	Vendor URL

	License

	License URL

In the font file's "TTF Names" field with ID "Descriptor", append text

indicating

        * who performed the modifications, and their contact information

	* date of modifications

	* outline of what was modified

For example:

	Modified Oct. 2011 by Steve White <stevan.white@gmail.com>

	Most character ranges besides Latin were removed.

If you do more than simply trim away character ranges from the font,

we at the  FreeFont project we would ask you to 

	* append your own copyright notice to the Copyright field

	* change the Version string to your own

	* change Vendor and Vendor URL to your own name and URL.

(We don't want to be getting bug reports on your modifications!)

$Id: webfont_guidelines.txt 2221 2012-04-16 22:45:30Z Stevan_White $