Well, thansk to David Clark, I see that there is already an fsf project to address this, here: http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/freefont/ and there is a tool called ttfmod here http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/TtfMod/ which can be used to do truetype hinting, but needs a lot of work. On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 08:58:47AM -0400, Simon Law wrote: > On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 11:53:06PM -0700, Michael Cardenas wrote: > > Hello everyone. Please cc me on any replies as I am not subscribed. > > Done. You should set your Mail-Followup-To: header to say that, > then any intelligent mail reader will CC you. > will do. > > I will be making a package shortly for dustismo, and am talking with > > the author about the possibility of more gpl'ed fonts. I have also > > emailed the maintainer of metatype, as his font needs some more work > > and I'm willing to work on it, but I haven't received a response yet. > > Thank you for your time and effort. It is nice to see > Lindows.com contributing directly to the Debian project. > I'm actually doing this on my own time, but Lindows does send back patches of any modifications we make that are useful. We also release our source and most of what we do is work on gpl projects. > > What a long winded prelude! I want to ask you about how, or if, I > > should approach some other font authors to see if they are interested > > in releasing their fonts under the gpl. > > I believe you should. However, there are legal implications to > using the GPL which are subtle. You may want to consider asking them to > dual license, or to consider the LGPL. > How would the lgpl apply to a font? And how would they dual license? I don't really understand what that means. > > So, should I contact these font authors to ask them about licensing? > > How should I approach them? Is there someone else more appropriate and > > interested who is a dd and has a d.o email address? (i'm still in the > > nm process) > > I think that since you have done a lot of research, you ought to > approach them. You should approach them in a friendly way, introduce > yourself as a Debian volunteer, and explain our predicament. Then ask > them if they would like to help. You can then explain the legal issues > surrounding their current licensing, and how alternative licenses could > help. Since most fontographers are not lawyers, it may be that they > have just picked the wrong license for their intent. > > I've been dealing with the Nessus people on a similar licensing > problem; and I'm also in the NM queue. As long as you're friendly, kind > and understanding; most upstreams I've talked to are pretty > accomodating. If they say "no", then don't push the issue. Licensing > is a pretty "hot" topic for some people. > Great, then I'll go ahead and approach them. Thanks for the tips. > > I'm very interested in providing high quality type to the free > > software community, and I want to do whatever I can to make that > > happen. If that means finding gpl or dfsg compliant fonts, then so be > > it. If I can't find any and have to make my own, I plan to do so. > > Actually, we probably should make our own. The dirth of Free > tools for making TrueType is a major roadblock, and should be something > to be worked upon. > > The reason why we should make our own is so that documents > coming from the non-free world can carry reasonably well. We need a > Times clone and a Helvetica clone, with the same dimensions and kerning. > A Zapf Dingbats clone would also be beneficial. They don't have to look > the same, but they ought to have the same characters, in the same place, > with the same _behaviour_ so that documents can be shared without gross > formatting changes. > see the links at the top of this email. > > thank you for your time > > No, thank you Michael. > > Simon > Hoefully, we can make a dent in this problem. michael -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer | lindows.com | hyperpoem.net "You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars." - Thomas Traherne
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