Re: Minutes of the GNOME Board meeting September 10 2002

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    Note that fonts are protected IPR, so we can't use pirated ones.

Since GNU is meant to be lawful free software, we certainly can't use
unauthorized copies of font programs, or anything, in GNU; this
applies to GNOME as well.  We need more free fonts, so developing more
of them is a very useful project.  Kudos to whoever can arrange more
free fonts.

But even though we won't distribute unauthorized copies, please don't
refer to such copies as "pirate".  That word supports the propaganda
campaign of the proprietary software companies.  They want people to
think that sharing with your neighbor is the moral equivalent of
attacking a ship (i.e., piracy).

We use only lawful methods to oppose them, but that doesn't mean their
laws are legitimate.  We should never promote their propaganda
campaign.

The term "IPR" or "intellectual property" is also propaganda.  In
addition, it encourages simplistic overgeneralizations.  It lumps
together various areas of law, such as copyrights, patents, and
trademarks, which are completely different, and that leads people to
try to think about all of them at once.  To think about any of them
clearly, you need to think about them separately.  To have a
discussion about "intellectual property" leads people to choose among
sweeping generalizations that are all wrong.

By the way, it is also incorrect to say that a font is "IPR".  The
term properly refers to various legal abstractions (copyrights,
trademarks, etc.), not to works (fonts, programs, novels, etc.).

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html for more
explanations about these issues.