On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 06:23:52 +0930 Paul Wise wrote: > Hi all,
Hi! > > The final STIX fonts licence is available (quoted below too): [...] > Here are some of the comments they got on it: > > http://www.stixfonts.org/feedback-license.html I read: | Comment: The Debian project (http://www.debian.org/) would like to | distribute your fonts. Unfortunately there seems to be a consensus | that the licence agreement does not meet the Debian Free Software | Guidelines (DFSG). The licence does not seem to allow modifications to | parts of the fonts that are not the glyphs, which clashes with DFSG 3. | This includes modifying the README.txt and any other files. | | Response: In our haste to release the fonts before the end of October, | we accidentally failed to use the final version of the STIX Fonts | license. That version of our license does permit the modifications | required to conform to the DFSG, and indeed to other open source | software licenses. (16 November 2007) but the license text does not seem to be much changed. [...] > And the licence itself: [...] > TERMS AND CONDITIONS The only clause that seems to be somewhat modified, with respect to the previously discussed draft[1] is clause 4: [...] > 4. You may also (a) add glyphs or characters to the Fonts, or any > other material to the Fonts, or modify the shape of existing glyphs, > so long as the base set of glyphs is not removed and (b) delete glyphs > or characters, or any other material, from the Fonts, provided that > the resulting font set is distributed with the following disclaimer: > "This [name] font does not include all the Unicode points covered in > the STIX Fonts___ set but may include others." In each case, the name > used to denote the resulting font set shall not include the term > "STIX" or any similar term. [...] which basically adds a more explicit permission to act on "any other material", rather than on glyphs or characters only. But, despite this change, my concerns about *which* are the permitted "acts" survive. In the previous debian-legal thread[1] clarifications were asked for about what may be done with glyphs[2]. The current license language does not seem to clarify anything... Moreover it seems that the super-rename-restriction[3] is still present... I still think this license fails to meet the DFSG, unfortunately. :-( Please remember that IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/11/msg00000.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/11/msg00014.html [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/11/msg00004.html P.S.: Another annoying point is | this license will appear as a "click through" page that must be | accepted in order to download a free copy of the fonts which is really awkward for something that is intended to be free software! :-( -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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