On Mon, 2004-04-26 at 17:22, Humberto Massa wrote:
> @ 26/04/2004 18:11 : wrote tb@becket.net :
>
> >"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU> writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >>You forgot one other thing. We'll also have to strip **ALL**
> >>**FONTS** from Debian, since fonts come in binary form, and we don't
> >>have anything approaching the "preferred form for modification" for
> >>fonts.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Where are you quoted the words "preferred form for modification" from?
> >I can't find them anywhere in the Social Contract or the DFSG.
> >
> >Thomas
> >
> I will quote (misquote?) what I have seen here about this: the words
> "preferred form for modification" are imported from the GNU GPL, and
> used in debian-legal at least, traditionally, to define source code.
The other aspect of "preferred form for modification", is 'modification
by whom'?
So, for example, for most free software people, TrueType is the
preferred format for modifying most fonts, and most people building
screen fonts will be using either proprietary or open source tools
to do so directly (e.g. pfaedit).
For a font foundry, (e.g. Bitstream, in the Vera case), which uses
its own proprietary tools to generate multiple formats (e.g. Postscript,
TrueType, and proprietary formats), the answer may be different. Having
the bits in that form would *not* be useful to anyone else intent
on modifying those fonts.
I think a bit of sanity and common sense is lacking in this discussion,
myself.
- Jim
--
Jim Gettys <Jim.Gettys@hp.com>
HP Labs, Cambridge Research Laboratory