[OpenFontLibrary] What licenses do we accept?

[Khaled Hosny]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 08:19:30PM +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le mercredi 15 juillet 2009 à 19:52 +0300, Khaled Hosny a écrit :
> > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 06:02:55PM +0200, nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:28:28AM -0400, Ed Trager wrote:
> > > >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Nicolas
> > > 
> > > >> Do the Adobe-licensed-to-TeX Utopia fonts exist in a TrueType or
> > > >> OpenType packaging?  Fontaine's current code looks only at the SFNT
> > > >> structures in TrueType/OpenType fonts.  Would anyone produce a new or
> > > >> new derivative work in only the PS Type 1 format?  I hope not ...
> > > >
> > > > AMS fonts version 3.1 (released few weeks ago) is now OFL licensed.
> > > > http://www.ams.org/tex/amsfonts.html
> > > 
> > > Just proves you can rely on TeXies to keep obsolete font formats alive
> > > long after their peremption date.
> > 
> > There are old TeX engines that aren't going anywhere anytime soon, since
> > those system do what their users want for decades now, why bother
> > replacing them. Converting Type1 fonts to OpenType isn't that simple,
> > and there is little gain to justify the effort (from TeX point of view)
> > and thus I expect these fonts to stay around for longer time.
> 
> I expect apps (not just TeX) that do not update their fonts will find
> out that integration in distros like Fedora is increasingly difficult. I
> certainly have no intention of screwing up the rest of the system just
> so TeX and friends don't have to evolve. Sanity checks will apply to any
> package shipping fonts regardless of its history. And the intent is to
> write more checks not less (guess what packages fail them today)

I'm not sure in what sense using Type1 fonts would screw up the rest of
the system. TeX fonts has always been a different territory, and aren't
supposed to integrate with the rest of the system anyway. Technically
speaking, TeX is frozen and will never get updated, Even though new
TeX-based engines support OpenType (XeTeX and LuaTeX), there still
people who aren't willing to switch, for valid reasons, and will keep
use those "obsolete" formates. So, distros have either to support these
use scenarios or screw up their users, it is up to them.

And as Type1 is a valid font formate (I just checked, and my GTK+ apps
can use it) and I don't see a point for OFLB not to support it.

Regards,
 Khaled

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer
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