> I do not know why fonts-ubuntu and fonts-ubuntu-console are in the non-free
section of Debian.
Apparently when packaging these fonts Debian concluded that the Ubuntu Font
License is not compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. The
packaging discussion is [here][1], and the issue filed with Ubuntu is
[here][2]. The issue appears to be that
* "Canonical's trademark guidelines prohibit use of the Ubuntu name in
commercial distributions"
and
* "the license grants no rights under trademark law, and yet it requires you
to use the trademark if you make trivial changes"
which together mean that the trademark effectively imposes some restrictions
on commercial use, rendering the font non-free.
Note that according to the Debian packaging discussion in the first link,
even if the license were compatible with the DFSG, the fonts would still only
be eligible for inclusion in contrib, not main, because there is another
issue. The font cannot be compiled from its preferred from of modification
without non-free tools.
FYI, I found this information by looking at the [debian/copyright file][3]
for the fonts-ubuntu package. That is generally the first place I'd look for
answers about why a Debian package is in non-free.
[1]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=603157
[2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-licence/+bug/1167425
[3]:
https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//non-free/f/fonts-ubuntu/fonts-ubuntu_0.83-4_copyright
