Can a font with an unfree character be free?
I apologize if this does not belong on this list, since it is not specifically related to Debian. The International Symbol of Access (the wheelchair symbol that's used all over the place), to the best of my knowledge, is unfree. Its conditions of use can be seen at http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/japanese/resource/other/z00014/z0001406_e.html . It's also a unicode codepoint. If a font includes this as a character, can it be free?
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
On Mon, 14 May 2007, Nathan Edgars II wrote: The International Symbol of Access (the wheelchair symbol that's used all over the place), to the best of my knowledge, is unfree. Its conditions of use can be seen at http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/japanese/resource/other/z00014/z0001406_e.html It's also a unicode codepoint. That's the conditions of use of the ISA which is copyright by ICTA or whatever the UN group is now who holds the copyright. So long as the font character is not a derivative work of the copyrighted symbol, then the rules regarding its use do not apply. If a font includes this as a character, can it be free? Considering the fact that the actual symbol is a white wheelchair on a blue background, it's not clear that a black font would be a derivative work of such a design. Baring such a specific claim by ICTA or another copyright holder, there's no need to even address the issue. Don Armstrong -- The trouble with you, Ibid he said, is that you think you're the biggest bloody authority on everything -- Terry Pratchet _Pyramids_ p146 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 02:51:31AM -0400, Nathan Edges II wrote: [...] http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/japanese/resource/other/z00014/z0001406_e.html [...] If a font includes [the symbol of access wheelchair] as a character, can it be free? The character itself isn't non-free, but rather the character being used with the designated colors/directions: The Symbol shall always be used in the design and proportions approved by the Assembly, a reproduction of which shall be disseminated with this resolution. The color used for the Symbol shall be white on a dark blue background, to conform with the international road sign conventions, unless there are compelling reasons to use other colors. The figure should face to the right, unless there are directional reasons for it to face left. To be restricted, the symbol has to have the same proportions that were approved by the Assembly, it must be white on a dark blue background, and facing right. But this, I don't quite understand: No change in or addition to the Symbol design shall be permitted. The basic symbol may be used in conjunction with additional signs or text for directional or identification purposes, as long as they do not distort the integrity of the Symbol. By the symbol do they mean the basic wheelchair, or the whole thing with all of the colors? I'd try to contact someone and see what they mean by that, because otherwise I may be interpereting this wrong. If the restrictions are only places on the right-facing, white on blue wheelchair then it should be fine to redistribute. If by symbol they mean the basic wheelchair, then redistribution wouldn't fall under DFSG-free terms from what I can tell. -- http://digital-haze.net/~pobega/ - My Website If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs. - Richard Salmon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
On 5/14/07, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Considering the fact that the actual symbol is a white wheelchair on a blue background, it's not clear that a black font would be a derivative work of such a design. I didn't think simply changing colors removed the original copyright.
EPSG data reviewing in progress [was Re: libgeotiff_1.2.3-1_i386.changes REJECTED]
On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 10:14:35AM +, Joerg Jaspert wrote: Hi Maintainer, i dont think the EPSG tables license is free, so the dataset cant go into Debian main. Its a dont modify, non-commercial only license and a simple conversion into a different format doesnt change the license of the dataset used. Thanks to Frank Warmerdam and OSGEO, EPSG folks is now available to revise the licensing terms of their data. A preview of a new license is currently available on http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/RevisedEPSGLicense and a discussion about the terms of the license in order to have those data if possible embedded in a program for main is viable. CONTEXT: EPSG data are geodetic parameters, largerly used for GIS apps. Current terms are http://www.epsg.org/CurrentDB.html#use libgeotiff copyright file is as follows: -- License: All the source code in this toolkit are either in the public domain, or under an X style license. In any event it is all considered to be free to use for any purpose (including commercial software). No credit is required though some of the code requires that the specific source code modules retain their existing copyright statements. The CSV files, and other tables derived from the EPSG coordinate system database are also free to use. In particular, no part of this code is copyleft, nor does it imply any requirement for users to disclose this or their own source code. All components not carrying their own copyright message, but distributed with libgeotiff should be considered to be under the same license as Niles' code. - Code by Frank Warmerdam has this copyright notice (directly copied from X Consortium licence): * Copyright (c) 1999, Frank Warmerdam * * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. * * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS * OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL * THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING * FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER * DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. --- Code by Niles Ritter is under this licence: *Written By: Niles D. Ritter. * * copyright (c) 1995 Niles D. Ritter * * Permission granted to use this software, so long as this copyright * notice accompanies any products derived therefrom. --- The EPSG Tables (from which the CSV files, and .inc files are derived) carried this statement on use of the data (from the EPSG web site at url http://www.epsg.org/): Use of the Data 1. All data pertinent to a specific coordinate reference system must be copied without modification and all related pages/records must be included; 2. All components of this data set pertinent to any given coordinate reference system must be distributed together (complete distribution of all components of the data set is preferred, but the OGP recognises the need for a more limited distribution); 3. The data may not be distributed for profit by any third party; and 4. The original source [OGP] must be acknowledged. The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the use of this data. The data may be copied and distributed subject to the following conditions: INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. With regard to (3) above, the data may be included within proprietary applications distributed on a commercial basis when the commerciality is based on application functionality and not on a value ascribed to the freely-distributed EPSG dataset. These conditions are currently under review. --- -- Francesco P. Lovergine -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#423683: msttcorefonts: Windows Vista Fonts available legally for free
Am Montag, den 14.05.2007, 13:25 +0200 schrieb Thijs Kinkhorst: I've reviewed the licence, and I'm afraid it's a bit more bothered than that of the ms core fonts for the web: You may use the software only to view and print files created with Microsoft Office software. You may not use the software for any other purpose.. If I would include this into the msttcorefonts package this would severely limit the possibilities with these core fonts, that are currently free to be used for whatever purpose. Well, I see this point. How about a separate package, maybe 'ttf-vistafonts' or 'msvistacorefonts' which is in no way connected to the 'msttcorefonts' package and shows a debconf warning about the restrictions these fonts are subject to? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[OT] Re: Gmail (was: Dual licensing)
On 11/05/07, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P.S.: I recommend you against the use of Google Gmail. What's a good webmail to use then? - Jordi G. H. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: Gmail (was: Dual licensing)
On Mon, 14 May 2007 14:53:11 -0500 Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote: On 11/05/07, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P.S.: I recommend you against the use of Google Gmail. What's a good webmail to use then? The URLs I referenced suggest some alternative e-mail services, IIRC. -- 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 pgpdMrZf07tRp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Re: Gmail (was: Dual licensing)
On 14/05/07, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 14 May 2007 14:53:11 -0500 Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote: On 11/05/07, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P.S.: I recommend you against the use of Google Gmail. What's a good webmail to use then? The URLs I referenced suggest some alternative e-mail services, IIRC. I see no such suggestions in the links provided. Where are they? Other ideas? I really want webmail; storage size, searching abilities, and threaded conversations are all features I can give up; but webmail is much too convenient to give it up. - Jordi G. H. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
On Mon, 14 May 2007, Nathan Edgars II wrote: On 5/14/07, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Considering the fact that the actual symbol is a white wheelchair on a blue background, it's not clear that a black font would be a ^ derivative work of such a design. ^^^ I didn't think simply changing colors removed the original copyright. [emphasis added] If that is in fact what was done, it obviously doesn't. However, what is actually copyrighted is a specific representation of a person in a wheelchair, and the creation of derivative works thereof. It's not clear that all minimalistic representations of a person in a wheelchair would be derivative works of the ISA. Don Armstrong -- CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq indeed possessed weapons of maths instruction. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
On 5/14/07, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 14 May 2007, Nathan Edgars II wrote: On 5/14/07, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Considering the fact that the actual symbol is a white wheelchair on a blue background, it's not clear that a black font would be a ^ derivative work of such a design. ^^^ I didn't think simply changing colors removed the original copyright. [emphasis added] If that is in fact what was done, it obviously doesn't. However, what is actually copyrighted is a specific representation of a person in a wheelchair, and the creation of derivative works thereof. It's not clear that all minimalistic representations of a person in a wheelchair would be derivative works of the ISA. But a depiction with the same lines in the same place would be unfree, right? You'd have to basically start from scratch and draw a new wheelchair symbol to make it free?
Re: Can a font with an unfree character be free?
First off, we're not talking about free/non-free here; we're talking about who controls the copyright of a glyph in a font. The free/non-free nature of the glyph is dependent on how that work is licensed, not the copyright status of the work. On Tue, 15 May 2007, Nathan Edgars II wrote: But a depiction with the same lines in the same place would be unfree, right? Only if the depiction was a derivative work of the orignally copyrighted work. Only trademark protects against the convergence of unrelated works; copyright does not. You'd have to basically start from scratch and draw a new wheelchair symbol to make it free? The question is whether or not that has been done. In order to talk about that intelligently, we have to look at specific instances of the symbol's use in a specific font within a specific package and the process that resulted in creating the glyph. Don Armstrong -- If you have the slightest bit of intellectual integrity you cannot support the government. -- anonymous http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
