Re: no font shown with tamil.el

[Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org>]

In article <E18j3ZC-00056E-00@fencepost.gnu.org>, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>     The new Indian implementation uses the ISFOC standard fonts.  We use
>     CDAC ISFOC fonts to display the Devanagari script in Emacs.  They are
>     copyrighted,

> Being copyrighted is not a problen--Emacs is also copyrighted.  The
> issue is, is it released under a free software license?

> 		 but we received permission to use them in Emacs from the
>     font developers.

> Special permission to use something "in Emacs" or "with Emacs"
> is usually NOT sufficient.  In order for us to use anything, we
> have to be able to distribute it under a free software license.

> Would you please show me the license of these fonts?  I can check if
> it is a free software license.  If these are not free, we cannot use
> them in Emacs or recommend them to Emacs users.

> Also, what is ISFOC?  Is it in India?  Can you tell me how to contact
> the people there?  I am on the way to India now, and if these are not
> free, I may be able to convince them to make them free.

Kawabata-san <batta@beige.ocn.ne.jp>, please explain about
these issues.

> We may have to convert the code in Emacs to work with whatever
> free fonts are available.  How quickly can you do that?

As far as I know, pango contains bdf fonts for Indic
scripts.  Kawabata-san can support those fonts within 10
days if he has a time to work on it.

Another way is to use surely free OTF fonts (e.g. raghu.ttf
for devanagari), but for that, we must use freetype library
for rendering <http://freetype.sourceforge.net/index2.html>.
Do you think it's ok to link that library with Emacs?
Anyway, that requires a big work.

---
Ken'ichi HANDA
handa@m17n.org