Free font problem
Bill Kendrick wrote this great program called 'tuxpaint' which I packaged
for Debian, but it currently contains a non-DFSG-free TrueType font. I need
a replacement.
This led to me doing a little survey of TrueType fonts used by packages in
main which I posted to debian-devel here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-devel-200208/msg00080.html
In the course of looking for a replacement, Bill stumbled on this site
which, among all the non-free fonts may have some truly DFSG free fonts, but
the licenses are very ad hoc, so I thought I'd check them with you:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~ecf/alphabet.htm
The 'augie' font listed here is described on this page:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~ecf/augie.txt
Here is the relevant bit from that readme file:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"augie"
is a windows/macintosh truetype and postscript type 1 font,
handcrafted in the emerald city
by steven j. lundeen
emerald city fontwerks
seattle, washington, usa.
©2001
---------------------------------------------------------------------
please note,
"augie"
has been made available as freeware,
and no restrictions have been placed on its use.
"augie" may be freely re-distributed,
provided that this text file accompanies the font.
enjoy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems to me that 'no restrictions have been placed on its use' is pretty
clearly DFSG-compliant, although this 'license' is so brief that I really am
left wondering whether anything it does *not* say is potentially
problematic.
In particular, the license doesn't tell us if and how the font can be
modified. Presumably that falls under "no restrictions ... on use"?
The author was emailed by Bill about the license (although notably absent
from Bill's query was any question about modifying the font), and the author
responded with a simple restatement of the his "no strings attached" policy.
Is there anything else we need to do to this license to clean it up, or is
it suitable to go into Debian the way it is now?
Thanks,
Ben
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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