Re: Bug#156503: M$ true type fonts in non-free?
> Even if M$ has made unavailable for download true type fonts required by
> msttcorefonts, the fonts license (as someone pointed out on the familiar
> mailing list http://www.handhelds.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/familiar,
> Message-ID: <15705.18118.653809.456033@scream.east.isi.edu>) seems to
> permit redistribution.
Yes, I know. I haven't given up, but I don't want to jump to any
conclusions just yet.
> This is the key point (reported by the poster on the ML, I haven't
> checked it):
>
> Reproduction and Distribution. You may reproduce and
> distribute an unlimited number of copies of the SOFTWARE
> PRODUCT; provided that each copy shall be a true and complete
> copy, including all copyright and trademark notices, and shall
> be accompanied by a copy of this EULA. Copies of the SOFTWARE
> PRODUCT may not be distributed for profit either on a
> standalone basis or included as part of your own product.
>
> We can move msttcorefonts to non-free and embed the fonts in it.
> Fonts tarball is available at:
> http://keithp.com/~keithp/fonts/truetype.tar.gz
Unfortunately, this isn't quite true.
There used to be more information about Microsoft's interprettation of
their own EULA on the font web page. Since that page is gone, it's no
longer there, but the gist of it was that they were taking a very very
strict view of "a true and complete copy", to the extent that changing
the packaging of the fonts in any way (even just changing the filename
without changing the file contents) would make it no longer a true and
complete copy. They were pretty clear on this point.
In other words, no tarballs allowed. Distribution has to be in the form
of a collection of separate Windows 95 self-installing executables.
That's why I wrote the package as a contrib installer in the first place.
Embedding the fonts in the package would have been much simpler and
easier.
The question at this point is, how do we make distrubting such files
ourselves work logistically? I can't dupload an exe to the debian
mirror system. I could put the .exe's on people.debian.org under my
own account, but this isn't mirrored.
I may need to contact Microsoft for clarification of the terms of their
license. I don't know why MS ended their font program, but if it's
because they felt that the interest of cross platform compatibility was
no longer in MS's best interest, then I don't expect them to be
particularly generous in their terms. That's why I want to make sure
we follow this EULA to the strictest of possible standards.
Eric
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