Re: Fonts for distribution

[Clytie Siddall <clytie riverland net au>]

On 23/02/2006, at 1:21 AM, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> ØÙØ ÚÙØØØÙØÙØ 2006-02-22 ØØØØ 16:54 +1030Ø Clytie  
> Siddall ÙÙØØ:
> > What do you guys think? If we could release Gentium and maybe Doulos
> > with distros, our users have effective, true Unicode fonts which will
> > display all localizations.
>
> Gentium, Doulos, and Charis are already available in Fedora, in  
> packages
> named "gentium-fonts", "doulos-fonts", and "charis-fonts". All  
> three are
> currently available for Fedora Core 5 test versions, while at the
> present moment only gentium-fonts is available for Fedora Core 4  
> (Charis
> and Doulos will be available in a few days).
>
> For example, to install the Gentium on Fedora, one can simply type:
> # yum install gentium-fonts

This is interesting to hear, Roozbeh, thankyou, because on the debian- 
i18n list, where I also brought up this topic, I was told somewhat  
forcibly that the OFL doesn't allow distribution. MJ Ray said:

> Last I heard, the Open Font Licence got its name change clause
> (clause 3) wrong and prevents people making API-compatible
> new fonts based on OFL'd ones (that is, derived works cannot
> be drop-in replacements for an original). It goes far further
> in this restriction than the Bitstream Vera fonts, for example.
> The Bitstream Vera README tells you how to include a local.conf
> file to be a drop-in replacement, but that seems forbidden
> for OFL'd packages.
>
> The OFL FAQ claims it follows the DFSG, but DDs disagree. See
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00454.html
> for example. Please do not upload OFL'd fonts to main for now.

Not that I was going to upload anything, but you get the gist.
> > Everson Mono turns out to be shareware (I don't remember that when I
> > was first pointed to it :( ):
> >
> > http://www.evertype.com/emono/emshareware.html
>
> Well, Michael Everson, the font author, is a dear friend of mine,  
> and I
> have been trying to make him release that font under a free software
> license. I even made him watch the movie Revolution OS to get better
> ideas of what I am really talking about. No real progress yet, but I
> guess I will try again and again.

Keep trying! Does he like chocolate? ThinkGeek caffeine goodies? Not  
that I would consider bribery, of course ... unless it were cheap and  
effective. :D

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhÃm  
Viát hÃa phán mám tá do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN