Tahoma Font License

[Mark Page]

I am a bit confused by the Wine "tahoma" license: "Wine Tahoma Regular" ... GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1 
 
It would be useful to add the font to the ClanLib SDK resources (ClanLib has a zlib style license) 
 
It is not clear how a font can be licensed using LGPL, since LGPL is based around software libraries. 
 
Ideally I feel it should have a creative commons license 
 
I believe Creative commons did not exist when that font was created
 
(I initially posted this message to forum.winehq.org, and it was suggested that I should post here instead)
 
Mark.

[Maarten Lankhorst]

Hi mark,

2011/5/25 Mark Page <rombust(a)hotmail.co.uk>:
> I am a bit confused by the Wine "tahoma" license: "Wine Tahoma Regular" ... GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1
>
> It would be useful to add the font to the ClanLib SDK resources (ClanLib has a zlib style license)
>
> It is not clear how a font can be licensed using LGPL, since LGPL is based around software libraries.
>
> Ideally I feel it should have a creative commons license
>
> I believe Creative commons did not exist when that font was created

tahoma.sfd: Copyright: Copyright (c) 2004 Larry Snyder, Based on
Bitstream Vera Sans Copyright (c) 2003 by Bitstream, Inc. Font renamed
in accordance with former's license. Please do not contact Bitstream
Inc. for any reason regarding this font.

So just look up the original without contacting bitstream inc. ?

Cheers,
Maarten

[Scott Ritchie]

On 05/25/2011 09:27 AM, Maarten Lankhorst wrote:
> Hi mark,
>
> 2011/5/25 Mark Page <rombust(a)hotmail.co.uk>:
> > I am a bit confused by the Wine "tahoma" license: "Wine Tahoma Regular" ... GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1
> >
> > It would be useful to add the font to the ClanLib SDK resources (ClanLib has a zlib style license)
> >
> > It is not clear how a font can be licensed using LGPL, since LGPL is based around software libraries.
> >
> > Ideally I feel it should have a creative commons license
> >
> > I believe Creative commons did not exist when that font was created
>
> tahoma.sfd: Copyright: Copyright (c) 2004 Larry Snyder, Based on
> Bitstream Vera Sans Copyright (c) 2003 by Bitstream, Inc. Font renamed
> in accordance with former's license. Please do not contact Bitstream
> Inc. for any reason regarding this font.
>
> So just look up the original without contacting bitstream inc. ?

The topic of relicensing wine fonts has come up before.  Usually the
discussion ends with "our fonts aren't as good as you think, and you
probably don't want them so don't worry about licensing."

I'm not so sure it's true anymore.  Symbol replacement, for instance,
can actually be useful to show special characters on web pages that
would otherwise come up as question marks.

-Scott Ritchie

[Mark Page]

----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 16:39:04 -0700
> From: scott(a)open-vote.org
> To: wine-devel(a)winehq.org
> Subject: Re: Tahoma Font License
>
> On 05/25/2011 09:27 AM, Maarten Lankhorst wrote:
> > Hi mark,
> >
> > 2011/5/25 Mark Page :
> > > I am a bit confused by the Wine "tahoma" license: "Wine Tahoma Regular" ... GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1
> > >
> > > It would be useful to add the font to the ClanLib SDK resources (ClanLib has a zlib style license)
> > >
> > > It is not clear how a font can be licensed using LGPL, since LGPL is based around software libraries.
> > >
> > > Ideally I feel it should have a creative commons license
> > >
> > > I believe Creative commons did not exist when that font was created
> >
> > tahoma.sfd: Copyright: Copyright (c) 2004 Larry Snyder, Based on
> > Bitstream Vera Sans Copyright (c) 2003 by Bitstream, Inc. Font renamed
> > in accordance with former's license. Please do not contact Bitstream
> > Inc. for any reason regarding this font.
> >
> > So just look up the original without contacting bitstream inc. ?
>
> The topic of relicensing wine fonts has come up before. Usually the
> discussion ends with "our fonts aren't as good as you think, and you
> probably don't want them so don't worry about licensing."
>
> I'm not so sure it's true anymore. Symbol replacement, for instance,
> can actually be useful to show special characters on web pages that
> would otherwise come up as question marks.
>
> -Scott Ritchie

For reference, I have emailed Larry, via an email address I found searching archive wine developer lists ( wierd_w at y***o.com )
 
I sent the email last week. Hopefully, he still is using that address.
 
I will post a message if he does allow a change of license.
 
Mark.