[Scribus] font management

[Marvin Dickens]

On Sunday 17 April 2005 01:51 pm, Frank Cox wrote:
> On 4/17/05, Marvin Dickens <marvindickens at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Sunday 17 April 2005 01:05 am, Craig Ringer wrote:
> > > Bart Alberti wrote:
> >
> > True. Also, it is note worthy to point out that using gpl licensed fonts
> > in a document makes the document a derived work of the font and
> > therefore, subject to the gpl.
>
> I have great difficulty believing that.  Compiling a program using GCC
> doesn't make the compiled program GPL and that has a much closer
> "relationshiop" than mere fonts in a document.

Unless the document is a text document (ie yourdoc.txt), the font is
embedded into the document and is part of the document. Much like
stdio.h (A common header file in C) is used in c source files and therefore,
the resulting binary. Because the gpl is viral in it's design (which is a good 
thing), embedded fonts infect whatever document they are embedded into
with the GPL. 

This *exact* issue also plagues the gEDA project (Electronic design). The
use of gpl'ed symbols and footprints makes any electronic design that uses
them subject to the gpl. So, in this case, users of gEDA design and share
their footprints and symbols under a "Free for use regardless of application" 
license. However, expecting users of fonts to design really good fonts 
because of this issue is crazy. So, IMHO, the gpl is going to have change 
regarding font licensing.

Regards

Marvin