[PATCH 0/3] Various new fonts

[PATCH 0/3] Various new fonts

[Alex Griffin]

These patches add the Comic Neue, Iosevka, and Go fonts.

I've been holding off on submitting them because they just copy TTF
files instead of building from source, which I think may be against the
FSDG. I brought up this point a few months back and nothing really came
of it. I'm submitting them now because nobody else seems concerned, and
I've been happy enough with these packages to use them myself. Many free
fonts make it very difficult or impossible to build from source anyway.
-- 
Alex Griffin

Re: [PATCH 0/3] Various new fonts

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Alex,

Alex Griffin <a@ajgrf.com> skribis:

> I've been holding off on submitting them because they just copy TTF
> files instead of building from source, which I think may be against the
> FSDG.

I think copying TTFs is not perfect, but I don’t think it contradicts
the GNU FSDG.  What part of the FSDG did you have in mind?

> I brought up this point a few months back and nothing really came of
> it. I'm submitting them now because nobody else seems concerned, and
> I've been happy enough with these packages to use them myself. Many
> free fonts make it very difficult or impossible to build from source
> anyway.

So far I see only two of our font packages that depend on Fontforge; I
think the others simply copy TTF/OTF files around.

I’m not sure which discussion you’re referring to, but I think
long-term, we should encourage font packages that build from source.
However, I would not refuse packages that copy TTF/OTF files today
because the other packages are not up to that standard yet.

WDYT?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: [PATCH 0/3] Various new fonts

[Alex Griffin]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2017, at 06:48 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> I think copying TTFs is not perfect, but I don’t think it contradicts
> the GNU FSDG.  What part of the FSDG did you have in mind?

The first two paragraphs under "License Rules." It reads to me like
fonts should be treated identically to other software and be available
in source form. Which I guess doesn't exactly mean we need to build from
source, but when a user runs `guix build -S font-foo`, they may not get
the preferred format for making changes.

> I’m not sure which discussion you’re referring to, but I think
> long-term, we should encourage font packages that build from source.
> However, I would not refuse packages that copy TTF/OTF files today
> because the other packages are not up to that standard yet.
> 
> WDYT?

I would agree with that. I was referring to the discussion about Adobe
Source Code Pro, starting with Mark's message here:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-08/msg00727.html
-- 
Alex Griffin

Re: [PATCH 0/3] Various new fonts

[Ludovic Courtès]

Alex Griffin <a@ajgrf.com> skribis:

> On Fri, Feb 10, 2017, at 06:48 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> I think copying TTFs is not perfect, but I don’t think it contradicts
>> the GNU FSDG.  What part of the FSDG did you have in mind?
>
> The first two paragraphs under "License Rules." It reads to me like
> fonts should be treated identically to other software and be available
> in source form. Which I guess doesn't exactly mean we need to build from
> source, but when a user runs `guix build -S font-foo`, they may not get
> the preferred format for making changes.

In the message you referred to, Mark wrote:

  That said, this needn't be a blocker for including the built OTF files
  in Guix, as long as the license permits all users to copy and
  redistribute them for commercial and non-commercial purposes, as these
  fonts are considered non-functional data.  See:

  http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#non-functional-data

And that’s also my thinking, that fonts are non-functional data.

That said, “License Rules” also mentions fonts as an example of “data
that has direct functional applications”.  My take is that the fonts you
submitted, for example, are “more of an adornment to the system's
software than a part of it” (like the FSDG puts it), and are thus
non-functional.

There’s a fine line between functional and non-functional here, but I
think viewing these extra fonts as non-functional is a reasonable
interpretation.

>> I’m not sure which discussion you’re referring to, but I think
>> long-term, we should encourage font packages that build from source.
>> However, I would not refuse packages that copy TTF/OTF files today
>> because the other packages are not up to that standard yet.
>> 
>> WDYT?
>
> I would agree with that.

So I guess we’ll apply the patches you sent, but I hereby encourage you
to consider changing them to build the fonts from source.  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.