Re: Bug#182402: ttf-freefont is violating the GNU GPL
Hi...
On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 01:17:00AM -0500, Simon Law wrote:
> Package: ttf-freefont
> Version: 20021016-2
> Severity: serious
>
> The package ttf-freefont is licensed under the GNU General Public
> License, as listed in the appended debian/copyright file. I can confirm
> this from http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/freefont/COPYING .
>
> Since ttf-freefont _does_ _not_ include the complete
> corresponding machine-readable source code,
Yes it does. It includes complete machine readable source code of the
fonts in a particular format (ie. TTF). Since TTF files are effectively
like images (albeit in a very specialised format), you can modify and
improve them with the appropriate tools. True, there are other formats
you could provide the fonts in, but I would argue that TTF fulfils all
the requirements of source code based distribution.
In fact, if you pay close attention to the file dates in the upstream
archive, it appears freefont-ttf-20020306.tar.gz is the newest release
for the TTF files, and freefont-sfd.tar.gz (dated 2003/02/19) is the
newest release of the SFD files. Even upstream doesn't seem to release
SFD files quite as often as TTF files.
> I recommend that you immediately upload a package containing the
> source SFD files to satisfy our licensing obligations. You should use
> both http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/freefont/freefont-ttf.tar.gz
> and http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/freefont/freefont-sfd.tar.gz to
> construct the package.
Well, I can do this but I would like an opinion from debian-legal before
I haemorrhage archive space like this (this would triple the size of the
source package from 1.2mb to more like 3.9mb). If you really thought
this was the way to go, I guess I would instead Build-Depend on pfaedit
and have to automate the generation of the TrueType fonts.
I'll ask upstream about this today.
=)
Peter
>
> --- BEGIN debian/copyright ---
> This package was debianized by Peter Hawkins <peterh@debian.org> on
> Fri, 27 Sep 2002 12:42:49 +1000.
>
> It was downloaded from http://www.nongnu.org/freefont/
>
> Upstream Author: Primoz Peterlin
>
> Copyright:
> This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
> any later version.
>
> You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License with
> your Debian GNU/Linux system, in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL, or with
> the Debian GNU/Linux ttf-freefont source package as the file COPYING. If not,
> write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite
> 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
> ---- END debian/copyright ----
>
> As well, the debian/copyright notice does not actually specify
> the correct copyright statement. I suggest revising it thus:
>
> --- BEGIN suggested debian/copyright ---
> This package was debianized by Peter Hawkins <peterh@debian.org> on
> Fri, 27 Sep 2002 12:42:49 +1000.
>
> It was downloaded from http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/freefont/
>
> Upstream Maintainer: Primoz Peterlin <primoz.peterlin@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si>
>
> Copyright:
>
> freefont is a collection of free Universal Character Set outline fonts.
> Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation
>
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
> (at your option) any later version.
>
> This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
> GNU General Public License for more details.
>
> You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
> Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
>
> On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General
> Public License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'.
> ---- END suggested debian/copyright ----
>
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