FIGlet fonts

[Lyes Saadi]

Hello Legal,

I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts!

Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency for other
packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird fonts were
included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, and 
decided
to abort everything.

Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, and 
proposed
to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them depending on
whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to create a 
clean
package with none of the problematic fonts in it.

In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this already
happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, or 
that such
consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation on 
figlet
either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that the 
issue
was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the problematic fonts
anyway.

But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible in 
Fedora.
And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if it 
actually
was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts.

To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, obviously):
In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered
insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts 
defined pixel
by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered as 
data which
represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing 
instructions
and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is defined 
through a
software code.

Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet fonts, 
they
are also known as ASCII fonts:

     __  __     ____           __                     ____

    / / / /__  / / /___       / /   ___  ____ _____ _/ / /

   / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \     / /   / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / /

  / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    / /___/  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/

/_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( )  /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_)

                      |/              /____/


The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever concerned 
that
type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet 
fonts are
similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and do 
not, in
the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer drawing
instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or 
extensible,
they just contain raw data about a font.

But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a lawyer, so I
don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court.

I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I didn't 
make any
mistake.

Greetings,
Lyes Saadi

[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642
[2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108
[3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89

PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now that 
all the
fonts have been sorted out?

[Lyes Saadi]

Hello Legal,

I just bring this up again because the pyfiglet contributors and myself 
are still waiting for an answer.

Should I maybe ask this question somewhere else? Or can we have an 
update if anything has been done?

Also, can the FE-legal blocker be removed from the review request now 
that all the fonts that remain are under an Open-Source license anyway?

Greetings,
Lyes Saadi


Le 23/10/2021 à 21:30, Lyes Saadi a écrit :
> Hello Legal,
>
> I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts!
>
> Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency for 
> other
> packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird fonts 
> were
> included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, 
> and decided
> to abort everything.
>
> Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, and 
> proposed
> to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them 
> depending on
> whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to create 
> a clean
> package with none of the problematic fonts in it.
>
> In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this 
> already
> happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, or 
> that such
> consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation 
> on figlet
> either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that 
> the issue
> was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the problematic 
> fonts
> anyway.
>
> But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible in 
> Fedora.
> And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if it 
> actually
> was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts.
>
> To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, 
> obviously):
> In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered
> insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts 
> defined pixel
> by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered as 
> data which
> represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing 
> instructions
> and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is defined 
> through a
> software code.
>
> Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet 
> fonts, they
> are also known as ASCII fonts:
>
>     __  __     ____           __                     ____
>
>    / / / /__  / / /___       / /   ___  ____ _____ _/ / /
>
>   / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \     / /   / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / /
>
>  / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    / /___/  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/
>
> /_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( )  /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_)
>
>                      |/              /____/
>
>
> The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever 
> concerned that
> type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet 
> fonts are
> similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and 
> do not, in
> the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer 
> drawing
> instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or 
> extensible,
> they just contain raw data about a font.
>
> But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a lawyer, 
> so I
> don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court.
>
> I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I didn't 
> make any
> mistake.
>
> Greetings,
> Lyes Saadi
>
> [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642
> [2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108
> [3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89
>
> PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now 
> that all the
> fonts have been sorted out?
> _______________________________________________
> legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> Fedora Code of Conduct: 
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> List Archives: 
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: 
> https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

[Jilayne Lovejoy]

Hi Lyes,

I'm not sure I can help (in terms of actually removing the FE-legal 
blocker in the issue), but I'm curious to see if I understand, from a 
legal perspective, what has gone on here.

Am I correct that there was the Figlets fonts pacakge which contained a 
bunch of different licenses, some of which were problematic for Fedora. 
But the pyfiglet "port", as they call it, has done the work of removing 
the problematic licenses thus creating a similar fonts package with only 
the fonts under "good" licenses?

Looking at the Github repo, I also see the MIT license at the top level. 
Your spec file notes there are many licenses, though, in the actual font 
files. I browsed around a bit, but I was curious as to how you discerned 
the other licenses? (i.e., manually looking or otherwise?) Just curious 
as to some of the details of package maintainer's process when it comes 
to licenses!

I'm not sure I agree with the legal analysis of the copyrightability of 
fonts as summarized, but I'm also not sure that matters if the stated 
licenses for all the fonts in this package would be meet the "good" 
criteria for Fedora.

Cheers,
Jilayne

On 10/23/21 12:30 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
>  Hello Legal,
>
>  I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts!
>
>  Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency for 
>  other
>  packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird fonts 
>  were
>  included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, 
>  and decided
>  to abort everything.
>
>  Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, and 
>  proposed
>  to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them 
>  depending on
>  whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to create 
>  a clean
>  package with none of the problematic fonts in it.
>
>  In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this 
>  already
>  happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, or 
>  that such
>  consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation 
>  on figlet
>  either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that 
>  the issue
>  was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the problematic 
>  fonts
>  anyway.
>
>  But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible in 
>  Fedora.
>  And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if it 
>  actually
>  was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts.
>
>  To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, 
>  obviously):
>  In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered
>  insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts 
>  defined pixel
>  by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered as 
>  data which
>  represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing 
>  instructions
>  and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is defined 
>  through a
>  software code.
>
>  Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet 
>  fonts, they
>  are also known as ASCII fonts:
>
>      __  __     ____           __                     ____
>
>     / / / /__  / / /___       / /   ___  ____ _____ _/ / /
>
>    / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \     / /   / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / /
>
>   / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    / /___/  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/
>
>  /_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( )  /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_)
>
>                       |/              /____/
>
>
>  The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever 
>  concerned that
>  type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet 
>  fonts are
>  similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and 
>  do not, in
>  the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer 
>  drawing
>  instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or 
>  extensible,
>  they just contain raw data about a font.
>
>  But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a lawyer, 
>  so I
>  don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court.
>
>  I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I didn't 
>  make any
>  mistake.
>
>  Greetings,
>  Lyes Saadi
>
>  [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642
>  [2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108
>  [3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89
>
>  PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now 
>  that all the
>  fonts have been sorted out?
>  _______________________________________________
>  legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: 
>  https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>  List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
>  List Archives: 
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
>  Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: 
>  https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

[Lyes Saadi]

Hello! And thank you for your answer!

Le 14/01/2022 à 04:53, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
>  Hi Lyes,
>
>  I'm not sure I can help (in terms of actually removing the FE-legal 
>  blocker in the issue), but I'm curious to see if I understand, from a 
>  legal perspective, what has gone on here.
>
>  Am I correct that there was the Figlets fonts pacakge which contained 
>  a bunch of different licenses, some of which were problematic for 
>  Fedora. But the pyfiglet "port", as they call it, has done the work of 
>  removing the problematic licenses thus creating a similar fonts 
>  package with only the fonts under "good" licenses? 
Not exactly, the original figlet package removed problematic licenses a 
while ago, and, pyfiglet reintroduced other problematic fonts. But, 
recently, one of the maintainers decided to go through all the fonts, 
traced their origin and classified them. Those which had « good » 
licenses now live in the `fonts-standard/` directory, while those which 
had « bad » or unknown licenses where moved to the `fonts-contrib/` 
directory! The new pyfiglet package does not include the 
`fonts-contrib/` directory (I removed it from the tarball, and thus the 
SRPM to comply with the licensing guidelines).

>  Looking at the Github repo, I also see the MIT license at the top 
>  level. Your spec file notes there are many licenses, though, in the 
>  actual font files. I browsed around a bit, but I was curious as to how 
>  you discerned the other licenses? (i.e., manually looking or 
>  otherwise?) Just curious as to some of the details of package 
>  maintainer's process when it comes to licenses! 
The entire breakdown can be found here : 
https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89#issuecomment-899051848 
(and in the comments following that one) ! And, I went through all the 
fonts again to make sure there was nothing missing/no error.

>  I'm not sure I agree with the legal analysis of the
> copyrightability 
>  of fonts as summarized, but I'm also not sure that matters if the 
>  stated licenses for all the fonts in this package would be meet the 
>  "good" criteria for Fedora. 
We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal argument is solid 
enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as far as we 
know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an issue for the 
Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now included are in 
the « good » license list.

Greetings,
Lyes Saadi

>  Cheers,
>  Jilayne
>
>  On 10/23/21 12:30 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
> > Hello Legal,
> >
> > I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts!
> >
> > Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency for 
> > other
> > packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird fonts 
> > were
> > included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, 
> > and decided
> > to abort everything.
> >
> > Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, and 
> > proposed
> > to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them 
> > depending on
> > whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to create 
> > a clean
> > package with none of the problematic fonts in it.
> >
> > In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this 
> > already
> > happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, or 
> > that such
> > consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation 
> > on figlet
> > either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that 
> > the issue
> > was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the 
> > problematic fonts
> > anyway.
> >
> > But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible in 
> > Fedora.
> > And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if it 
> > actually
> > was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts.
> >
> > To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, 
> > obviously):
> > In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered
> > insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts 
> > defined pixel
> > by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered as 
> > data which
> > represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing 
> > instructions
> > and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is 
> > defined through a
> > software code.
> >
> > Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet 
> > fonts, they
> > are also known as ASCII fonts:
> >
> >     __  __     ____           __                     ____
> >
> >    / / / /__  / / /___       / /   ___  ____ _____ _/ / /
> >
> >   / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \     / /   / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / /
> >
> >  / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    / /___/  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/
> >
> > /_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( )  /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_)
> >
> >                      |/              /____/
> >
> >
> > The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever 
> > concerned that
> > type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet 
> > fonts are
> > similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and 
> > do not, in
> > the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer 
> > drawing
> > instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or 
> > extensible,
> > they just contain raw data about a font.
> >
> > But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a 
> > lawyer, so I
> > don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court.
> >
> > I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I didn't 
> > make any
> > mistake.
> >
> > Greetings,
> > Lyes Saadi
> >
> > [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642
> > [2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108
> > [3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89
> >
> > PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now 
> > that all the
> > fonts have been sorted out?
> > _______________________________________________
> > legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > Fedora Code of Conduct: 
> > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> > List Archives: 
> > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> > Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: 
> > https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  legal mailing list --legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email tolegal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  Fedora Code of Conduct:https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>  List Guidelines:https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
>  List
> Archives:https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]...
>  Do not reply to spam on the list, report it:https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

[Jilayne Lovejoy]

Hi Lyes!

On 1/14/22 5:19 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
>  Hello! And thank you for your answer!
>  
well, I'm not sure I really have an answer  - still trying to make sure 
I understand the question!
>  Le 14/01/2022 à 04:53, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
> > Hi Lyes,
> >
> > I'm not sure I can help (in terms of actually removing the FE-legal 
> > blocker in the issue), but I'm curious to see if I understand, from a 
> > legal perspective, what has gone on here.
> >
> > Am I correct that there was the Figlets fonts pacakge which contained 
> > a bunch of different licenses, some of which were problematic for 
> > Fedora. But the pyfiglet "port", as they call it, has done the work 
> > of removing the problematic licenses thus creating a similar fonts 
> > package with only the fonts under "good" licenses?
>
>  Not exactly, the original figlet package removed problematic licenses 
>  a while ago, and, pyfiglet reintroduced other problematic fonts. But, 
>  recently, one of the maintainers decided to go through all the fonts, 
>  traced their origin and classified them. Those which had « good » 
>  licenses now live in the `fonts-standard/` directory, while those 
>  which had « bad » or unknown licenses where moved to the 
>  `fonts-contrib/` directory! The new pyfiglet package does not include 
>  the `fonts-contrib/` directory (I removed it from the tarball, and 
>  thus the SRPM to comply with the licensing guidelines).
>
> > Looking at the Github repo, I also see the MIT license at the top 
> > level. Your spec file notes there are many licenses, though, in the 
> > actual font files. I browsed around a bit, but I was curious as to 
> > how you discerned the other licenses? (i.e., manually looking or 
> > otherwise?) Just curious as to some of the details of package 
> > maintainer's process when it comes to licenses!
>
>  The entire breakdown can be found here : 
>  https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89#issuecomment-899051848 
>  (and in the comments following that one) ! And, I went through all the 
>  fonts again to make sure there was nothing missing/no error.
>
> > I'm not sure I agree with the legal analysis of the copyrightability 
> > of fonts as summarized, but I'm also not sure that matters if the 
> > stated licenses for all the fonts in this package would be meet the 
> > "good" criteria for Fedora.
>
>  We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal argument is 
>  solid enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as far 
>  as we know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an issue 
>  for the Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now included 
>  are in the « good » license list.
>  
So the specific ask for Fedora now is - can we include the fonts in the 
fonts-contrib/ directory as well, instead of only the fonts in the 
fonts-standard/ directory - is that right?

I'm not really clear on what the licensing is for the font in the 
fonts-contrib/ directory, as the few fonts I opened simply don't have 
any explicit license info. Do you know if that is the case (and 
therefore the problem in terms of redistribution in Fedora)?

Thanks,
Jilayne
> >
> > On 10/23/21 12:30 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
> >> Hello Legal,
> >>
> >> I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts!
> >>
> >> Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency 
> >> for other
> >> packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird 
> >> fonts were
> >> included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, 
> >> and decided
> >> to abort everything.
> >>
> >> Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, 
> >> and proposed
> >> to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them 
> >> depending on
> >> whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to 
> >> create a clean
> >> package with none of the problematic fonts in it.
> >>
> >> In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this 
> >> already
> >> happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, 
> >> or that such
> >> consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation 
> >> on figlet
> >> either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that 
> >> the issue
> >> was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the 
> >> problematic fonts
> >> anyway.
> >>
> >> But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible 
> >> in Fedora.
> >> And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if 
> >> it actually
> >> was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts.
> >>
> >> To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, 
> >> obviously):
> >> In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered
> >> insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts 
> >> defined pixel
> >> by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered 
> >> as data which
> >> represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing 
> >> instructions
> >> and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is 
> >> defined through a
> >> software code.
> >>
> >> Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet 
> >> fonts, they
> >> are also known as ASCII fonts:
> >>
> >>     __  __     ____           __                     ____
> >>
> >>    / / / /__  / / /___       / /   ___  ____ _____ _/ / /
> >>
> >>   / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \     / /   / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / /
> >>
> >>  / __  /  __/ / / /_/ /    / /___/  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/
> >>
> >> /_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( )  /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_)
> >>
> >>                      |/              /____/
> >>
> >>
> >> The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever 
> >> concerned that
> >> type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet 
> >> fonts are
> >> similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and 
> >> do not, in
> >> the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer 
> >> drawing
> >> instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or 
> >> extensible,
> >> they just contain raw data about a font.
> >>
> >> But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a 
> >> lawyer, so I
> >> don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court.
> >>
> >> I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I 
> >> didn't make any
> >> mistake.
> >>
> >> Greetings,
> >> Lyes Saadi
> >>
> >> [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642
> >> [2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108
> >> [3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89
> >>
> >> PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now 
> >> that all the
> >> fonts have been sorted out?
> >> _______________________________________________
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[Lyes Saadi]

Hi!

Le 19/01/2022 à 04:16, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
>  Hi Lyes!
>  
>  On 1/14/22 5:19 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
> >
> > Hello! And thank you for your answer!
> >
>  well, I'm not sure I really have an answer  - still trying to make sure 
>  I understand the question!
>
>  [...]
>  >> We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal argument is
> > solid enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as far 
> > as we know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an issue 
> > for the Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now included 
> > are in the « good » license list.
> >
>  
>  So the specific ask for Fedora now is - can we include the fonts in the 
>  fonts-contrib/ directory as well, instead of only the fonts in the 
>  fonts-standard/ directory - is that right? 
Yes, that's what we're trying to do. (Also, removing the FE-LEGAL tag 
from the review request for now, since only fonts-standard is included 
anyway. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to do that directly.)

>  I'm not really clear on what the licensing is for the font in the
>
>  fonts-contrib/ directory, as the few fonts I opened simply don't have 
>  any explicit license info. Do you know if that is the case (and 
>  therefore the problem in terms of redistribution in Fedora)? 
Yes, these files are proprietary and/or have an unknown origin. If we 
follow the licensing guidelines for normal (Vector) fonts, it would be 
impossible to redistribute them in Fedora.

But, our argument is that all these files should be "insufficiently 
creative" to be considered copyrightable in the first place (in the US, 
at least), in the same way that Bitmap fonts are not copyrightable. So, 
it wouldn't matter what their license is, they would just be under 
Public Domain.

> Thanks,
> Jilayne
> 
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[Lyes Saadi]

Hello!

I'm kinda reviving a discussion from the dead, but it's been since 
January and pyfiglet is still blocked with its review despite new 
versions of the package being licensing-trouble free as they only 
include the fonts which are Open Source and safe to include thanks to 
the great amount of work of upstream. And so, we'd like to go ahead with 
this to finally include pyfiglet into Fedora.

So, without focusing on the legal argument, I wanted to ask here what 
was the procedure for going back with a dead review due to legal issues. 
Can I for example just "remove" the FE-LEGAL tag or do I need some sort 
of re-review/approval from legal?

Greetings,
Lyes Saadi

Le 19/01/2022 à 14:35, Lyes Saadi a écrit :
> Hi!
> 
> Le 19/01/2022 à 04:16, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
>> Hi Lyes!
>>
>> On 1/14/22 5:19 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello! And thank you for your answer!
>>>
>> well, I'm not sure I really have an answer  - still trying to make 
>> sure I understand the question!
>>
>> [...]
>> >> We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal argument is
>>> solid enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as 
>>> far as we know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an 
>>> issue for the Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now 
>>> included are in the « good » license list.
>>>
>>
>> So the specific ask for Fedora now is - can we include the fonts in 
>> the fonts-contrib/ directory as well, instead of only the fonts in the 
>> fonts-standard/ directory - is that right?
> 
> Yes, that's what we're trying to do. (Also, removing the FE-LEGAL tag 
> from the review request for now, since only fonts-standard is included 
> anyway. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to do that directly.)
> 
>> I'm not really clear on what the licensing is for the font in the 
>> fonts-contrib/ directory, as the few fonts I opened simply don't have 
>> any explicit license info. Do you know if that is the case (and 
>> therefore the problem in terms of redistribution in Fedora)?
> 
> Yes, these files are proprietary and/or have an unknown origin. If we 
> follow the licensing guidelines for normal (Vector) fonts, it would be 
> impossible to redistribute them in Fedora.
> 
> But, our argument is that all these files should be "insufficiently 
> creative" to be considered copyrightable in the first place (in the US, 
> at least), in the same way that Bitmap fonts are not copyrightable. So, 
> it wouldn't matter what their license is, they would just be under 
> Public Domain.
> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jilayne
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>> Fedora Code of Conduct: 
>> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
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>> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail] 
>>
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[Richard Fontana]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 8:59 PM Lyes Saadi <ml(a)lyes.eu&gt; wrote:
>  Hello!
>
>  I'm kinda reviving a discussion from the dead, but it's been since
>  January and pyfiglet is still blocked with its review despite new
>  versions of the package being licensing-trouble free as they only
>  include the fonts which are Open Source and safe to include thanks to
>  the great amount of work of upstream. And so, we'd like to go ahead with
>  this to finally include pyfiglet into Fedora.
>
>  So, without focusing on the legal argument, I wanted to ask here what
>  was the procedure for going back with a dead review due to legal issues.
>  Can I for example just "remove" the FE-LEGAL tag or do I need some sort
>  of re-review/approval from legal? 
If I'm not mistaken I have just removed the FE-Legal block.

Richard

>  Le 19/01/2022 à 14:35, Lyes Saadi a écrit :
>  > Hi!
>  >
>  > Le 19/01/2022 à 04:16, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
>  >> Hi Lyes!
>  >>
>  >> On 1/14/22 5:19 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
>  >>>
>  >>> Hello! And thank you for your answer!
>  >>>
>  >> well, I'm not sure I really have an answer  - still trying to make
>  >> sure I understand the question!
>  >>
>  >> [...]
>  >> >> We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal argument is
>  >>> solid enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as
>  >>> far as we know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an
>  >>> issue for the Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now
>  >>> included are in the « good » license list.
>  >>>
>  >>
>  >> So the specific ask for Fedora now is - can we include the fonts in
>  >> the fonts-contrib/ directory as well, instead of only the fonts in the
>  >> fonts-standard/ directory - is that right?
>  >
>  > Yes, that's what we're trying to do. (Also, removing the FE-LEGAL tag
>  > from the review request for now, since only fonts-standard is included
>  > anyway. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to do that directly.)
>  >
>  >> I'm not really clear on what the licensing is for the font in the
>  >> fonts-contrib/ directory, as the few fonts I opened simply don't have
>  >> any explicit license info. Do you know if that is the case (and
>  >> therefore the problem in terms of redistribution in Fedora)?
>  >
>  > Yes, these files are proprietary and/or have an unknown origin. If we
>  > follow the licensing guidelines for normal (Vector) fonts, it would be
>  > impossible to redistribute them in Fedora.
>  >
>  > But, our argument is that all these files should be "insufficiently
>  > creative" to be considered copyrightable in the first place (in the US,
>  > at least), in the same way that Bitmap fonts are not copyrightable. So,
>  > it wouldn't matter what their license is, they would just be under
>  > Public Domain.
>  >
>  >> Thanks,
>  >> Jilayne
>  >>
>  >> _______________________________________________
>  >> legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  >> To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  >> Fedora Code of Conduct:
>  >> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>  >> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
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>  >> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
>  >>
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>  >> https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
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[Lyes Saadi]

Hello,

Thank you so much for taking care of this :D!

And, yes, the FE-LEGAL block was removed!

Thank you!
Lyes Saadi

Le 26/07/2022 à 06:15, Richard Fontana a écrit :
> On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 8:59 PM Lyes Saadi <ml(a)lyes.eu&gt; wrote:
>>
>> Hello!
>>
>> I'm kinda reviving a discussion from the dead, but it's been since
>> January and pyfiglet is still blocked with its review despite new
>> versions of the package being licensing-trouble free as they only
>> include the fonts which are Open Source and safe to include thanks to
>> the great amount of work of upstream. And so, we'd like to go ahead with
>> this to finally include pyfiglet into Fedora.
>>
>> So, without focusing on the legal argument, I wanted to ask here what
>> was the procedure for going back with a dead review due to legal issues.
>> Can I for example just "remove" the FE-LEGAL tag or do I need some
sort
>> of re-review/approval from legal?
> 
> If I'm not mistaken I have just removed the FE-Legal block.
> 
> Richard
> 
>> Le 19/01/2022 à 14:35, Lyes Saadi a écrit :
>>> Hi!
>>>
>>> Le 19/01/2022 à 04:16, Jilayne Lovejoy a écrit :
>>>> Hi Lyes!
>>>>
>>>> On 1/14/22 5:19 PM, Lyes Saadi wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hello! And thank you for your answer!
>>>>>
>>>> well, I'm not sure I really have an answer  - still trying to make
>>>> sure I understand the question!
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>>> We'd love to have all the fonts included if our legal
argument is
>>>>> solid enough, though, since there is no precedent in US courts (as
>>>>> far as we know, we are no lawyers), I can understand why it is an
>>>>> issue for the Fedora Project. But, yes, all the fonts which are now
>>>>> included are in the « good » license list.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So the specific ask for Fedora now is - can we include the fonts in
>>>> the fonts-contrib/ directory as well, instead of only the fonts in the
>>>> fonts-standard/ directory - is that right?
>>>
>>> Yes, that's what we're trying to do. (Also, removing the FE-LEGAL
tag
>>> from the review request for now, since only fonts-standard is included
>>> anyway. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to do that directly.)
>>>
>>>> I'm not really clear on what the licensing is for the font in the
>>>> fonts-contrib/ directory, as the few fonts I opened simply don't
have
>>>> any explicit license info. Do you know if that is the case (and
>>>> therefore the problem in terms of redistribution in Fedora)?
>>>
>>> Yes, these files are proprietary and/or have an unknown origin. If we
>>> follow the licensing guidelines for normal (Vector) fonts, it would be
>>> impossible to redistribute them in Fedora.
>>>
>>> But, our argument is that all these files should be "insufficiently
>>> creative" to be considered copyrightable in the first place (in the US,
>>> at least), in the same way that Bitmap fonts are not copyrightable. So,
>>> it wouldn't matter what their license is, they would just be under
>>> Public Domain.
>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Jilayne
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> legal mailing list -- legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>>>> Fedora Code of Conduct:
>>>> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
>>>> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
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>>>>
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
>>>>
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>>>> https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
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>