General Discussion
From Wiki
This page is for general discussion about the concept and feasibility of the EEULAA.
Tharrson 14:51, 18 July 2008 (EDT) Laurence Penney mentioned today that there could be a problem, especially with large licenses, if a EULA changed. The customer will not want to redistribute all new copies of the font with the new EEULAA in it. I think we can address this pretty easily through the use of the EULA URL and/or serial number. We've already made it clear that the EEULAA will carry a disclaimer reminding users that this is only an abstract and that the full EULA contains the authoritative license terms. Since the EEULAA will contain a link to the full EULA it's relatively easy to keep that web page up to date. Further, use of the serial number can be used to specify a custom EULA for a particular customer.
12.31.19.15 14:44, 20 July 2008 (EDT)Rumor has it that Adobe has developed a "font updater" which will go through a customer's network and replace old versions of fonts with new versions. Waiting for confirmation from Tom Phinney.
12.31.19.15 14:58, 20 July 2008 (EDT)Discussion at the TypeCon panel this morning made it obvious that we need to include more and different "Licensed devices" options. Particularly we need pay-per-use options so that font usage can be paid for by metering usage. Also pay-per-time should be an option so that customers can pay for the license for a particular time. This is somewhat covered in the font personalization area, but probably needs to be pulled into the EEULAA. Suggestions appreciated.
24.69.40.78 19:50, 29 July 2008 (EDT) I'm suggesting adding Pay-per-Use, Pay-per-Download, and Pay-per-Time in a new section called "Metered". Unless anyone has objections or other suggestions I'll add these datapoints shortly.
Tharrson 15:08, 13 August 2008 (EDT) Thanks to Tom Phinney, John Collins, Andreas Eigendorf and Frank Wildenberg for comments and suggestions. Two non-exclusive schools of thought have emerged about how to handle font license upgrades:
1) Font replacement - whenever a license is upgraded the vendor/licensor sends out a new copy of the font. Font Management applications are already able to search networks and find all font files. It's a trivial step to add the feature of replacing all instances of a particular font with a new version. It's transparent to the users and requires the involvement of only one manager. Rumor has it that Adobe has already developed their own application which does this.
2) Remote EEULAA - There is no necessity that the EEULAA reside in the font file. If the EEULAA instead is a separate file that resides on a central server controlled by the vendor/licensor then the font EEULAA table only needs to contain the URL of the EEULAA file. In this case if there is an upgrade of a license the font vendor/licensor just upgrades the EEULAA (and EULA) on the server. The font and applications using the font still have access to the EEULAA data through the EEULAA URL, and no new distribution of font files is necessary. Nor are any digital signatures disturbed.
I believe Linotype is already doing a proprietary version of this with the EULA.
Tharrson 18:43, 11 October 2008 (EDT) - Minutes from ATypI EULA SIG meeting are posted below.
Also the beta version of the new EEULAAeditor application is now available for testing in either Mac or Windows versions. Email me to get your copy.
Tharrson 19:40, 11 October 2008 (EDT)
EULA SIG Minutes
ATypI EULA Special Interest Group Minutes of the meeting of 19 September 2008 St. Petersburg, Russia
Present: Ted Harrison, Andreas Eigendorf, Ivo Gabrowitsch, David Dewitt, Sergey Malkin Frank Wildenberg, Nadine Chahine, Johannes Köstler
Minutes of the 2007 meeting were read and approved.
Old Business
EEULAA wiki - it was noted that the wiki for the electronic EULA abstract had been moved to a new website which had been created for the sole purpose of explaining and promoting the EEULAA - www.eeulaa.org
EEULAAeditor - the release of the beta version of a new tool for creating and editing EEULAAs was announced. The application is available for both Windows and Macintosh platforms. Download links for the beta versions are located on the EEULAA datapoints page of EEULAA.org. Interested parties are encouraged to download and test the beta versions and to provide feedback on the wiki.
Model EULA - Frank Wildenberg and David DeWitt reported that Monotype and Linotype were still in the process of harmonizing their EULAs and would provide it as a model as soon as the process was finished.
Google - it was noted that Google's new web browser (Chrome) had not followed Safari's example and did not allow the use of raw fonts in CSS. It was suggested that finding a contact within Google who had knowledge of Google's intentions regarding the use of fonts on the web would be a good thing and that someone in Ascender Corp. might know how to find such a person. Ted Harrison volunteered to follow up with Ascender to see if we could find such a contact.
New Business
Data points - there was extensive discussion of existing and possible new datapoints for the EEULAA. The following points were made:
Defaults - the question was raised as to whether it was helpful to have default data automatically placed in empty fields in a new EEULAA. The general feeling was that it was not and might be confusing.
Use of zeroes to designate unlimited usage - currently in the "Number of Users" tab a zero is used to mean "unlimited use". This was thought to be confusing and counterintuitive so it was suggested that some other symbol be used to designate unlimited use.
Platform conversion - it was pointed out that the platform conversion data point was unnecessary since OpenType fonts are platform independent. It was agreed to remove this datapoint.
Embedding - the group discussed the applicability of the "none/print-preview/editable/installable" embedding model to the use of fonts on the web. It was decided that this model remained viable for web embedding as well as document embedding.
Commercial use - the question was raised as to whether the distinction between commercial and non-commercial use of fonts was useful, practical or important enough to warrant its own datapoints. No conclusion was reached.
Pay-per-view - A new datapoint for metered licensing was proposed. "Pay-per-view" would meter font use based on viewer impressions. This might be used for licenses where the utility/value-added of the font is greater due to higher visibility, such as billboards or banner ads. Or it might be used where the utility of the font increases due to increasing readership, as in newspapers or magazines. This datapoint will be added in the next revision.
Remote/reference EEULAA - one method of facilitating font license upgrade distribution is to have the EEULAA held centrally at the supplier rather than inside the font. This would obviate the need to physically redistribute a font throughout an organization after a license upgrade. In order to do this the EEULAA needs to have a field containing the URL of the EEULAA file. This datapoint will be added in the next revision.
Documentation - it was suggested that the EEULAAeditor application needs to have a user manual and/or help system. This would be especially useful for definitions of terms. Most of the relevant information already exists on the wiki or the eeulaa.org website, so it is just a matter of organizing it. This is a project that lends itself well to use of the wiki, so we will set up a framework there and invite participation.
EEULAA files - another suggestion was that EEULAAs be exportable/importable using the EEULAAeditor. This idea has several advantages: 1) a vendor can create and save a standard EEULAA and just import it into each new font, rather than having to manually enter each one. 2) Vendors can create libraries of standard EEULAAs. 3) A EEULAA file can be linked to a specific font and referenced remotely.
Distribution - It was suggested that in order to efficiently process font license upgrades we need a standardized system for interaction between distributors and suppliers. Such a system would use remote EEULAA referencing to update centrally held EEULAAs (at the supplier) whenever a distributor made a sale. Linotype already has a similar system, so there is no question of technical feasibility. What is needed is a standard API so that we can avoid duplication of effort and the proliferation of many mutually incompatible systems.
Liability for distributing license information - A concern was brought up about the potential problem of distributing licensee information with an embedded font. If a font with a EEULAA table is embedded then the licensee EULA information will go wherever the document/page/application containing the embedded font goes (assuming the EEULAA table is not stripped out during the embedding process). There is the potential that someone could extract the embedded font and then extract the EULA information from the font, thus obtaining information about the licensee's EULA. We'll need to obtain legal and vendor/supplier opinion about whether this is a significant risk and, if so, what to do about it.
recorded by Ted Harrison
