SIL Open Font License


The SIL Open Font License is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products.

History

designed the Open Font License for use with many of their Unicode fonts, including Gentium Plus, Charis SIL, and Andika. The license was first released in February 2007, six months after the GPL font exception was released.
Prior to the release of the OFL, the Bitstream Vera fonts had been released in 2003 under most of the same terms and conditions.

Terms

OFL is a free and open source license. The license is considered free by the Free Software Foundation, which states that a simple hello world program is enough to satisfy the license's requirement that fonts using the license be distributed with computer software when selling them. The Debian project agrees.
The Open Font License is a free software license, and as such permits the fonts to be used, modified, and distributed freely. However, the copyright holder may declare the font's name as being a "Reserved Font Name", which modified versions then cannot bear. The License permits covered fonts to be freely embedded in documents under any terms, but it requires that fonts be packaged with software if they are sold.
Open-source fonts are a popular choice among designers. Most open-source fonts utilize the Open Font License by SIL international. The only stipulation is that anyone cannot charge others to use them.