The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and

open source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compan ...

. It was created by

SIL International SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...

, the organization behind ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

.''

History

The Open Font License was created by SIL International employees Victor Gaultney and Nicolas Spalinger. Gaultney had previously designed the Gentium font and was unsatisfied with existing font licenses. The Open Font License was designed for use with many of SIL's

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

fonts, including

Gentium Plus Gentium (, from the Latin for "of the nations") is a Unicode serif typeface designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are free software, free and Open-source software, open source software, and are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), ...

, Charis SIL, and Andika. The license was in a "public review" stage between 2005 and 2007 and version 1.1 was published in February 2007. Prior to the release of the OFL, the

Bitstream Vera Vera is a digital typeface (computer font) superfamily with a liberal license. It was designed by Jim Lyles from the now-defunct Bitstream Inc. type foundry, and it is closely based on Bitstream Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It ...

fonts had been released in 2003 under most of the same terms and conditions. Open-source fonts are a popular choice among designers, and most open-source fonts utilize the Open Font License. For example, it was used to license a font made by the US government.

Terms

The Open Font License is a free software license, and as such permits the fonts to be used, modified, and distributed freely (so long as the resulting fonts remain under the Open Font License). However, the copyright holder may declare the font's name as being a "Reserved Font Name", which modified versions then cannot bear. (This includes subsetting for web fonts.) The license permits covered fonts to be freely embedded in documents under any terms. The only stipulation is that fonts cannot be sold on their own, though they may be included in software bundles for sale. The license is considered free by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

(FSF)FSF: Licenses for Fonts – SIL Open Font License 1.1
/ref> and the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

project. FSF states that although the requirement that the font be bundled with software rather than being distributed alone is unusual, that a simple

hello world program ''Hello'' is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1826. Early uses ''Hello'', with that spelling, was used in publications in the U.S. as early as the 18 October 1826 edition of the ''Norwich C ...

is enough to satisfy the license's requirement, and that it is therefore harmless.

References

External links

SIL Open Font License version 1.1

SIL Open Font License FAQ

Linux.com: SIL Open Font License revised
Free and open-source software licenses Copyleft software licenses {{free-software-stub

History

Terms

See also

References

External links