Font source Re: Social Contract GR's Affect on sarge
> People have argued that since there exists open source tools for
> editing fonts, font files should be considered their own source, even
> if Font Foundries have their own preferred source formats and use
> propietary tools to create font files via a compilation process.
But the TrueType files are the preferred form of modification for us;
most people, if offered a choice of the TrueType file or the format the
font foundries used to edit, they would take the TrueType files.*
> But we can edit firmware via hex editors too,
> but firmware is considered evil so they are not considered own
> "source".
But almost no one, if given a choice of the binary or the assembly language
to edit, would choose the binary. At the very least, the assembly would be
invaluable to deciphering the details of the firmware, and I suspect many
programmers would write a Q&D assembler to use the assembly if there were
no free assemblers for the target.
* As a side note, it's far from true that all of the fonts in Debian
are produced by font founderies. The Thryomanes fonts are produced by
a lone programmer using the Macromedia font builder, IIRC. Several
newer fonts have the PfaEdit source files with them, making this
whole argument moot for them.
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