RE: Unicode copyleft inquiry

From: Paul Dempsey (paulde@microsoft.com)
Date: Mon May 08 2000 - 23:42:22 EDT


I see this as more of a logo for branding a class of products than an
encoded character. It's like the USB plug symbol, and other similar
licensed/compatability/standard logos stamped on products. I haven't seen a
proposal to encode these. There are many dingbats and logos encoded in
existing fonts, but that doesn't necessarily give them legitimacy as encoded
characters. The Unicode logo itself is not encoded, though one might wish to
see it stamped on products that adhere to the standard at some level.

The copyleft symbol, while comparable to the copyright and trademark symbols
in appearance and intent by the originators, does not have a legal status as
do the copyright and trademark symbols.

Consider that the Kosher/Pareve symbols are not encoded but are in
widespread printed usage (though representable with an enclosing circle
combined with the appropriate letter). If only a small change of visual
design were considered, you could represent a copyleft symbol in Unicode
(circled L, for example). Of course, you lose the cuteness/cleverness of the
current design.

--- Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deborah Goldsmith [mailto:goldsmith@apple.com]
> Sent: Monday, May 08, 2000 5:17 PM
> To: Unicode List
> Subject: Re: Unicode copyleft inquiry
>
>
> I suppose you could debate how widespread its use is, but I
> have to agree
> that the copyleft character does not seem like a private-use
> character.
>
> If people are really using it, it seems like it should be officially
> encoded. Not knowing anything about it, I would guess there
> are probably
> more people using it than some of the other characters that
> *have* been
> encoded. :-)
>
> Deborah Goldsmith
> Manager, International Toolbox Group
> Apple Computer, Inc.
> goldsmith@apple.com
>
> on 5/8/2000 4:52 PM, John O'Conner <john.oconner@eng.sun.com> wrote:
>
> > Aren't private-use characters to be used within relatively small,
> > well-contained organizations? ...hence the "private" in
> "private-use".
> > The copyleft idea, and now the copyleft character, will be
> used by a very
> > large number of people, or will at least be viewed by
> potentially many,
> > many people...with some people being part of the same
> organization, but
> > most coming from different ones. This would require
> different people around
> > the world to agree upon the code point of the character,
> which makes it a
> > quasi-standard, which seems exactly opposite the purpose of
> private-use
> > characters.
> >
> > Just stirring up dust,
> > John O'Conner
> >
> > Markus Scherer wrote:
> >
> >> sounds to me like a private-use character, similar to the
> apple symbol.
> >> markus
> >
>



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