Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 20:52:41 -0500 (CDT) From: Robert Bonomi <bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com> To: dnelson@allantgroup.com, seanhamilton@gmail.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: License for console fonts Message-ID: <201105100152.p4A1qffW003652@mail.r-bonomi.com> In-Reply-To: <20110509230430.GH81572@dan.emsphone.com>
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> From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon May 9 18:04:36 2011 > Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 18:04:30 -0500 > From: Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com> > To: Sean Hamilton <seanhamilton@gmail.com> > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: License for console fonts > > In the last episode (May 09), Sean Hamilton said: > > What is the license on the fonts in /usr/share/syscons/fonts, especially > > swiss-8x8? Who/what is their origin? Would it be acceptable to include > > these binaries with a GPL-licensed program? > > I submitted the "swiss" fonts back in 1997, and I have a file called > "swisst.com" on an old DOS directory dated 1995, so they're probably even > older than that. I seem to remember the 8x16 font was inspired by a sample > font that came with the ancient DOS font editor "Font Mania", but for > nostalgia's sake I goooled for it, started up DOSBox, and all of the sample > fonts are fancy and not suitable for daily use. I don't think I came up > with the name "swiss" myself, so I probably used another VGA font as a > template, but my guess is the original author isn't concerned about the > copyright status... You can consider them 2-clause BSD licensed like the > rest of FreeBSD, until someone can find an older font that looks similar. 'Swiss' is a name _many_ people used for a free "Helvetica" look-alike font. a substantial number were explicitly released into the public domain by being prduced _without_ any copright notice -- This was *before* U.S. adpted the "Berne Convention' copyright rules, and publication "without copyright claim" did, in _those_days_ (although *not* true today) did put it in the public domain. GNU, and GhostScript, had a Swiss font. "Cassiday & Greene" (a type foundry company) had a Swiss in their catalogue. (copyrighted, but -very- inexpensive to license.) I think the X11 distribution has a real, licensed, Helvetica, Thus, an 'authoritative' answer abuut the 'swiss' font in the FreeBSDo distribution is going to depend on _which_ font named "swiss" that it actually is. I would _not_ want to hazard a guess on that point -- among other things, I'm *nt* a good enough typographer to tell the difference between 'very simmilar' fonts. <wry grin>
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