Re: Fonts from the former fonts.openlilylib.org

[tisimst]

Andrew, et al,

On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 6:26 PM, Andrew Bernard [via Lilypond] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Abraham,

With your announcement of the commercialisation of your fonts and the taking down of the website, there is clearly a lot of speculation and uncertainty in the user community. Would you be so kind as to lay out for the list a full explanation of your approach going forward so as to assuage doubts and clarify the situation, instead of having list members second guess your intentions? I for one am quite concerned that the huge effort I have invested in scores using your fonts will become nullified.

Thanks!

No problem. Thanks for everyone's patience and questions. Let me lay out some things that should (hopefully) put the majority of questions to rest. I'll start from the beginning...

Last October I was laid off. Thankfully I had some funds saved up to make it by until about this last Christmas. Around that time I took to a lot of contemplation and after some encouragement from others, I made the executive decision to makes some changes to how I was distributing some of my fonts. I say "some" because there are a handful that are kind of out of my control due to their original licensing. Others of my own creation would become "commercialized". I wouldn't exactly call them proprietary since virtually everything in a font is exposed to the end user. I decided to set up a new store to facilitate these changes more effectively than what I was doing on fonts.openlilylib.org. I was hoping that this could provide a little extra side income for myself. I hope everyone can be understanding.

What does this mean? It means, as tyronicus and Urs have wisely stated (and is my intent), that the new licensing is not retroactive. In other words, if you have the fonts already, there is absolutely nothing I can (or intend to) do to make you pay the new licensing fees that will be associated with the new versions. So, Andrew, rest assured that you can keep and use the fonts that are in your possession.

Now, there's one more curve ball here that I fully understand and I want everyone else to understand. The copies of fonts previously distributed under a libre license IS STILL LICENSED THAT WAY. In other words, if that license allows you to distribute, make derivatives, etc., then YOU CAN without anyone's permission. I understand this and there's nothing I can do about it. If I could ask a favor, however, if you like what I've done, I would really appreciate it if someone comes asking any of you who have one of my fonts (specifically those that will be under a new license, which I'll mention below) that you refer them to my new website to acquire a license to use it instead of giving them the files you have. Acquiring the license also brings support for the fonts. I haven't yet determined if I would support the remaining libre fonts. I probably will, but only time will tell. I have no desire to leave anyone in the dark. I want to help. I'll just have to prioritize my time towards those who have paid for it. Chances are that I'll still be able to support everyone. I sincerely hope I can. Only time will tell if I will be able to do any major updates to the remaining free fonts.

Speaking of changes, here are the fonts that will fall under the new commercial licensing:

- Arnold

- Beethoven

- Cadence

- Gutenberg1939

- Haydn

- Improviso

- Ross

- Scorlatti

What will be different about them? The main thing is that they will all be completely sterilized from the Emmentaler glyphs. Previously, I left the Emmentaler glyphs in where the font didn't have a replacement. These have all been removed. I hope to add many of the missing glyphs where possible. I've tried hard to make sure that there is still a substantial set available that should cover the majority of normal use cases. Glyphs in the shape-notes and ancient notation sets will not be included in any of the commercial fonts. I just don't see any point to that because I'd just be duplicating the effort there when you can already access them through Emmentaler.

Everything else will remain free, available through my site. Right off the bat, I will probably only have an update for LilyJAZZ, but others will hopefully follow soon.

Hopefully that clarifies things. Let me know if there are further questions!

Best,

Abraham

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