Unicode® terms of use (was: Re: free download of ISO/IEC 10646)

Andrew West <andrewcwest at gmail dot com> wrote:

> The Unicode terms of use <http://unicode.org/copyright.html> are far
> more restrictive, and state that "Any person is hereby authorized,
> without fee, to view, use, reproduce, and distribute all documents and
> files solely for informational purposes in the creation of products
> supporting the Unicode Standard, subject to the Terms and Conditions
> herein." So if you are not planning to create a product supporting
> the Unicode Standard, you are not legally allowed to view or download
> any of the files comprising the Unicode Standard !

It looks to me like item A.3 says: "... solely for informational
purposes *and* in the creation of products supporting the Unicode
Standard..." (emphasis mine).

<ianal>
I read the word "and" as "and/or", meaning that one could compliantly
use the files just for personal information, OR to inform the creation
of products. That is just my interpretation, and in theory the "and"
might be intentionally inclusive and imply that the only compliant use
of the files is to create products. But that seems unlikely, given the
similar phrasing "view, use, reproduce, and distribute all documents and
files," which wouldn't strictly require the reproducing and distributing
parts, or the involvement of "all" documents and files.
</ianal>

--
Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸