[Libreoffice] ecofont

[Robinson Tryon]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Simos Xenitellis
<simos.lists at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Their font is based on Bitstream Vera,
> http://www-old.gnome.org/fonts/
> which has full information + FAQ about licensing.
>

The debian bug report I mentioned earlier in thread points to this
licensing PDF:
http://www.ecofont.eu/assets/files/Ecofont_licence.pdf

I have not examined that PDF in detail, but it both claims to be under
the GPL while also adding additional conditions. Something sounds
fishy there. According to the notes on the bug report "[the content of
the license text] make this non-free at a minimum, and possibly
illegal to distribute. It also seems to hint that it may be patent
encumbered or similar."

Unless there's additional information available, these specific fonts look DOA.

Looking forward, unless EcoFont has a patent on swiss-cheesing fonts,
one could potentially make swiss-cheese versions of the existing fonts
in LO.

As for merely saving toner/ink when printing, it appears that someone
did some testing and found that some fonts (e.g. Century Gothic) will
save more ink per word than the EcoFont.
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/century-gothic-saves-more-ink-than-ecofont.html

Choosing a different font face might be the best mechanism for people
to use less ink/toner.

--R