[Slackbuilds-users] Spranq Ecofont Truetype

[Robby Workman]

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:15:45 +0100
LukenShiro <lukenshiro at ngi.it> wrote:

> I would intend to submit an ecologically-compliant TTF font, made by
> a Dutch company. According to its author, its main purpose is to save
> ink when printing, so I think it could be useful to use and adopt it.
> 
> The problem seems to be its problematic license:
> this company claims the software to be distributed under GPL, but it 
> adds some restrictions in additional paragraphs who somewhat forbid
> some behaviours (mainly non-commercial and intellectual property
> clauses: it can't be sold at all, it can't be developed separately,
> its underlying technique can't be used in other fonts), without any
> prior authorization:
> http://www.ecofont.eu/assets/files/Ecofont_licence.pdf
> Furthermore, this font is based upon Bitstream Vera, who already has
> a partly GPL-incompatible license: 
> http://www.gnome.org/fonts/#Final_Bitstream_Vera_Fonts
> (it can't be sold alone, etc..).
> 
> According to the paragraphs' legal meaning, it would seem to apply
> all GPL license's clauses, including free($) and free(libre)
> redistribution, _except_ for above limitations. On the other hand it
> can be maybe considered a "derivative work" (being based on Bitstream
> Vera), so it most likely has to comply with B.V. license, as well.
> B.V. can be modified but you definitely must change its name; for
> this one, it is not clear if it can or cannot be
> modified/adapted/patched at all (I'd say even slight modification is
> prohibited, no matter if you change name or not).
> 
> It's simply a mess .... :-//
> Is this font, nonetheless, acceptable for SlackBuilds.org?
> 
> P.S. BTW debian distribution's maintainers have radically rejected
> it, but we all know they are really strict in what is or is not 100%
> free software as in freedom to be included and maintained in that
> distro. In this case, being a font and not requiring special measures
> to be installed, I believe maybe freedom can be considered at a
> different meaning and floor, compared to a so-called 'traditional'
> software. But, obviously, the decision is up to you, admins.


We're not shipping source or binaries of this, so as far as we're
concerned, it doesn't matter if the license requires you to use a rusty
spoon to remove sensitive parts of your anatomy and install GNU/Hurd on
your grandmother's computer.   Is that clear enough?  ;-)

-RW
> 
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