On Wed, 4 Sep, Brian Sniffen wrote: > Sadly, I don't own a copy of Computers & Typesetting. Can you quote > the full copyright page, and give a general indication of the contents > of Volume E? Somewhat surprisingly, no-one has done this completely yet. Computers & Typesetting, Volume E, Computer Modern Typefaces, is a nicely typeset version of the complete source code to the Computer Modern fonts, typeset in the literate programming style with diagrams of the characters and explanatory notes. I would consider it a canonical distribution of the Computer Modern typefaces. Here is the complete copyright page. The most relevant section (the fourth paragraph) was already posted by Martin Schröder. --------------- The quotations on pages 7 and 351 have been excerpted from the Electra file in the Dwiggins Collection of the Boston Public Library. METAFONT is a trademark of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. TeX is a trademarke of the American Mathematical Society. The programs for Computer Modern are in the public domain, and readers may freely generate and hand-tune their own fonts using the algorithms of this book. However, use of the names is restricted: Any fonts whose names cmr10 or cmbx12 or ... are identical to the standard font names of this book should be fully compatible with the fonts defined here; i.e., fonts with the same names are supposed to have precisely the same character coding schemes and precisely the same font metric files. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knuth, Donald Ervin, 1938- Computer Modern typefaces. (Computers & Typesetting ; E) Includes indexes. 1. Type and type-founding--Data processing. 2. Printing--Specimens. 3. METAFONT (Computer system). 4. Computerized typesetting. I. Title. II. Series: Knuth, Donald Ervin, 1938- . Computers & typesetting ; E Z253.K568 1986 686.2'2544 86-1235 ISBN 0-201-13446-2 Incorporates the final corrections made in 1992. Copyright (c) 1986 by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN 0-201-13446-2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13-HA-9998979695949392 ---------- (The "..." there is really in the original text.) (By the way, volumes B and D are about the TeX and METAFONT programs, respectively. They presumably have similar copyright pages, but I haven't checked.) The statement about the programs for Computer Modern is suprisingly vague for something that was presumably vetted by a lawyer. Let's see it again: > The programs for Computer Modern are in the public domain, and readers > may freely generate and hand-tune their own fonts using the algorithms > of this book. This place Computer Modern in the public domain, and furthermore explicitly grants some of the rights Debian needs (although it leaves out the right to redistribute). > However, use of the names is restricted: This is a slightly odd statement, since (AFAIK) names cannot be restricted in the ways that follow. The crucial issue seems to be whether this statement (and what follows) are terms of the grant of permission (above), or merely a request with no force in law. > Any fonts whose names cmr10 or cmbx12 or ... are identical to the > standard font names of this book should be fully compatible with the > fonts defined here; i.e., fonts with the same names are supposed to > have precisely the same character coding schemes and precisely the > same font metric files. To back up the notion that this is merely a request, I note the words "should" and "supposed". (I also note that there is no mention of specific _filenames_, merely the name of the _font_; and that there is some freedom to modify fonts under the same font name.) I think that, for the fonts to be distributable by Debian under this copyright notice, the statement about "public domain" has to be taken seriously, since otherwise there is no permission to distribute. Does Debian need legal advice on whether this statement actually places the files in the public domain? Or does it make more sense to approach Knuth directly? If we do approach Knuth, the letter should be carefully worded. Best, Dylan Thurston
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