Google Fonts

Authors and Contributors

🦤 Authors and contributors are people or industries participating into a project either because they paid for it, they employed people who created and produced it, or because they are the people who made it.

• The list of authors generally includes the creators and all the possible copyright holders (such as the company employing the actual creators). This may differ according to the copyright laws of the author’s country; better to inform yourself if the project was commissioned by an instiution or a company.
• The list of contributors generally includes everyone who participated in the project to a large degree: producers, engineers, developers etc. (including non–copyright-holders).

The AUTHORS.txt file is mandatory for font’s repository aimed to be published in Google Fonts:

• The AUTHORS.txt file is used from an important legal point of view: the copyright string in the License file point out to this file. No modification can be made to the license unless all copyright holders agreed to it.
• Google Fonts uses the AUTHORS.txt file to know who to credit in the #About section of the specimen page. Without this file, the font may be wrongly attributed.

Background reading:
must→ Upstream repository structure

Table of contents

• Crediting authors
• Crediting contributors

Crediting authors

Usually the foundry and the designers are mentioned. It can happen that the company is the only copyright holder (for example because the designers signed a contract giving up all rights with their company), or that there is so many authors that only the collective name is mentioned. In such a case, the names of the individual creators should be moved to the CONTRIBUTORS.txt file.

You can find a template in the Google Fonts Project Template, or copy-paste the text below into a .txt file that you add at the root of your repository. Don’t forget to replace our example “Supercompany” and “Laura Artist” by the actual copyright holders of the project.

# This is the official list of project authors for copyright purposes.
# This file is distinct from the CONTRIBUTORS.txt file.
# See the latter for an explanation.
#
# Names should be added to this file as:
# Name or Organization <email address

Super Company <info@supercompany.com>
Laura Artist <mail@lauraartist.com>

Crediting contributors

The CONTRIBUTORS.txt file is used to be able to reach out to some people when necessary (the maintainer of the repo, the engineer etc.) and to acknowledge their participation.

You can find a template in GFPT, or copy-paste the text below into a .txt file that you add at the root of your repository. Don’t forget to replace our example “Bob Tester” and “Maggie Techno” with the actual contributors of the projects.

# This is the list of people who have contributed to this project,
# and includes those not listed in `AUTHORS.txt` because they are not
# copyright authors. For example, company employees may be listed
# here because their company holds the copyright and is listed there.
#
# When adding J Random Contributor's name to this file, either J's
# name or J's organization's name should be added to `AUTHORS.txt`
#
# Names should be added to this file as:
# Name <email address

Bob Tester <hello@bobtester.com>
Maggie Techno <maggietechno@company.com>

Further reading:
templ License file
must→ README file

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