[HarfBuzz] Relicensing ftlayout

[Behdad Esfahbod]

Some of you may have already seen this on freetype-announce on Jan 2:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freetype-announce/2008-01/msg00000.html

Copying here for reference.

                              From: 
Werner LEMBERG
                           Subject: 
[ft-announce] Relicensing ftlayout
                              Date: 
Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:09:20 +0100
(CET)

________________________________________________________________________
Between 1998 and 2004 the FreeType project developed an implementation
of the OpenType Layout specification (formerly TrueType Open), called
ftlayout, that eventually was ripped out of FreeType 2 and was
salvaged by Pango and Qt developers and integrated into their layout
engines.  The code was further developed by the two projects
separately and was merged back and renamed to HarfBuzz [1].

The ftlayout code, like the rest of FreeType, was dual-licensed under
GPL+FTL.  The license, while quite liberal, posed delicate
incompatibility issues with Pango's LGPL license because of the
so-called advertisement clause in the FTL.  The FreeType project was
contacted and asked to consider relicensing ftvalid to resolve this
issue.

Recently Behdad Esfahbod (besfahbo at redhat.com) audited the ftvalid
sources from FreeType's source code repository and concluded that we
(Werner LEMBERG and David Turner) are the sole copyright holders of
the ftvalid code used in HarfBuzz.  As the copyright holders of that
code, we hereby and retroactively relicense it under the following
terms:

=======================================================================

Copyright 1998-2004 by David Turner and Werner Lemberg

Permission is hereby granted, without written agreement and without
license or royalty fees, to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
software and its documentation for any purpose, provided that the
above copyright notice and the following two paragraphs appear in
all copies of this software.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR
DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN
IF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS
ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS NO OBLIGATION TO
PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.

=======================================================================

The license is commonly known as "Old-Style" MIT and is more liberal
than both GPL and FTL.  Obviously, this change is only limited to the
ftvalid code from us and does not automatically extend to developments
made by HarfBuzz developers.  It is expected however that the HarfBuzz
team will issue a similar relicensing of their code soon.

Users are encouraged to update source files of their copies if they
would like to use the code under the new license.


Werner LEMBERG and David Turner,
FreeType Project

[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/HarfBuzz