Re: TTF font usage

On 30 Jul 2002 13:37:54 +0100
Moray Allan <moray@sermisy.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-07-30 at 10:54, Nils Faerber wrote:
> > Err... I should have kept the URL ;)
> > I think it was freeware.
> If it came from http://www.geocities.com/baramondfont/ , then the page
> does indeed merely say it's 'freeware'. (Unfortunately as far as I
> know that isn't a term with any legal meaning.)

Yes, I think this was it.
Even worse than the unspecified legal meaning of "freeware" even
copyright is not clearly definable in a global sense. I think that even
"copyright" can have different meanings in different countries.

> But I'm not quite sure what to make of the message at the bottom,
> "Baramond is freeware. The digitized font data of Garamond Antiqua are
> freeware and are available for free download from the copyright
> owners, Hewlett Packard. The digitized font data for the ligature
> characters of Baramond and for all of Paramond are the copyright of
> Jon Wheal." It looks a bit like the Baramond font may be directly
> based on HP's font?

I think it's something like GPL'ed software. Someone still owns the
copyright but you can freely use and distribute it.

> If we want to use either of these permanently, it would certainly be
> worth emailing the author to try to check the fonts' status, and
> specifically to ask if they would meet the Debian Free Software
> Guidelines - if not, we're no better off than with the fonts we can
> download from Microsoft.

OK, we should contact the person owning the geocities page.
But I think it makes no sense trying to contact HP. First it would take
a certain amount of work to find the proper contact and it will then
take a long time and certainly a lot of effort to get a clear statement.
Sometimes big companies are nice if you already know the right guys. But
if you don't you are pretty lost...

> Moray
CU
  nils faerber

-- 
kernel concepts          Tel: +49-271-771091-12
Dreisbachstr. 24         Fax: +49-271-771091-19
D-57250 Netphen          D1 : +49-170-2729106
--