Bug#1029555: lintian: license-problem-font-adobe-copyrighted-fragment-no-credit false positive
Package: lintian
Followup-For: Bug #1029555
X-Debbugs-Cc: roland@debian.org
Dear Maintainer and Roland,
Worth noting: there are two programs in the relevant Adobe reference manual[1],
appendix three[2], and both programs are, I think, _intended_ to be available
under open source licensing. The two programs collectively define four
subroutines.
So far Debian's lintian checks have looked for the smaller program that relates
to type hinting (as this is frequently useful for Type1 fonts). The other
program relates to a technology called 'Flex' (that I don't know much about).
The published open source code[3] for what appears to be the Flex-related
program differs from the originally-published version in one statement that
looks significant (note: it _also_ differs in a few non-computationally
significant ways*, but those seem like they could be a result of automated
transformation, such as during re-reading of the code from storage prior to
reproduction for open source distribution).
The difference is that the code from the original publication closes with a
PostScript 'noaccess'[4] directive, but this is missing from the open sourced
version.
>From a codesearch, Debian does not include the 'noaccess' version anywhere;
only the open source version of the code is in use. I'll report the
discrepancy to the upstream repository.
I'm working on a patch / merge request to update the lintian check to detect
other, non-open source code from the publication instead, as suggested. There
is an example (non-appendix) program listing that could be relevant, although
also seems relatively unlikely to be copied widely.
Thanks,
James
[ * differences appear to be: style differences in the copyright header
comment, two missing comment lines, whitespace/newline differences, and
difference in representation of fractional numbers using scientific
notation (e.g. 1e-05 vs .00001), and differences in whether the leading
zero in a decimal representation is included or not ]
[1] - https://adobe-type-tools.github.io/font-tech-notes/pdfs/T1_SPEC.pdf
[2] - https://adobe-type-tools.github.io/font-tech-notes/pdfs/T1_SPEC.pdf#page=97
[3] - https://github.com/adobe-type-tools/afdko/blob/2bf85cf44a64148353b24db17e0cc41ede5493b1/FDK/Tools/Programs/public/lib/source/t1write/t1write_flexothers.h
[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts#Printer_Font_ASCII
Reply to: