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Large Collection of Tamil Fonts now under GPL
By venkat, Section News
Posted on Mon Jan 20th, 2003 at 19:08:14 GMT
One of the thorny issues with Tamil desktop is the lack of high quality font with explicit license for unrestricted use. Without explicit permissions (such as GNU GPL or other Open Source Licenses), it is impossible to bundle these fonts with locales and other tools for any Linux distribution.

 

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Large Collection of Tamil Fonts now under GPL | 2 comments (2 topical, editorial) | Post A Comment
[new] Thanks for contributing to Free Software (#1)
by jbn (#168) () on Mon Jan 20th, 2003 at 22:52:13 GMT
(User Info)

I appreciate the contribution to Free Software, but some work needs to be done for a proper release to let everyone know what their rights are. The directions at the end of the GNU GPL should be enough to indicate what needs to be done and how best to do it.

The fonts in the tamil_opentype_fonts.tgz archive need a copy of the GNU GPL to be placed in the archive. The other fonts need a copy of the GNU GPL in their respective directories (this one, this one, and that one).

I'd do this myself and republish the font programs but without the inclusion of the license I can't be sure their license allows me to republish the programs at all. Copyright defaults to saying "no, you can't republish". Furthermore, some of the fonts have copyright text in the font file that contradicts release under the GNU GPL.

Most of the font files indicate who holds the copyright and grant no license to me. Some of the programs do not appear to be free: TABVerdana, for instance, says "Free for cultural and personal use.". I'm not sure what "cultural" use is, but copyright in the USA doesn't allow placing terms on use and there is no language in this to indicate licensing under the GNU GPL.

I'm sure once these issues are cleared up Free Software distributors like Debian will be happy to carry these fonts. Thanks for your generous addition.

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Large Collection of Tamil Fonts now under GPL | 2 comments (2 topical, editorial) | Post A Comment
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