[Bug 472635] New: Google Droid fonts specification

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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Summary: Google Droid fonts specification

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Summary: Google Droid fonts specification
           Product: Fedora
           Version: rawhide
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: medium
          Priority: medium
         Component: distribution
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]
         QAContact: [e-mail]
                CC: [e-mail], [e-mail],
                    [e-mail]
            Blocks: 182235,446451
    Classification: Fedora

Google has released for quite a long time a high-quality set of "Droid" fonts
as part of the Android platform. They have a high-visibility for average users
because of all the Google press barrage. The-Eula-protected Android SDK has
been superseded lately by a public source repository.

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/frameworks/base.git;a=tree;f=data/...

The NOTICE file in this directory is a Fedora-friendly Apache License. However
the font metadata embedded in the files claims:

« This font software is the valuable property of Ascender Corporation and/or
its suppliers and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license
agreement. This font software is licensed to you by Ascender Corporation for
your personal or business use on up to five personal computers. You may not use
this font software on more than five personal computers unless you have
obtained a license from Ascender to do so. Except as specifically permitted by
the license, you may not copy this font software.

If you have any questions, please review the license agreement you received
with this font software, and/or contact Ascender Corporation.

Contact Information:
Ascender Corporation
Web http://www.ascendercorp.com/ »

But Ascender will redirect you to Google, which is as usual silent.

To check it,
1. download a raw TTF file
2. open it in Fontforge
3. -> Elements
4. -> Font Info
5. -> TTF Name
6. -> License (License URL is fun too)

This has so far discouraged Fedora and Debian packaging, even though wild Droid
packages have started to appear, people are incorporating Droid material in
derivatives, and one of those may eventually make it in the repo without
raising Legal bells.

Thus I have two questions:
1. is the legal situation clear enough to allow Fedora packaging as is
2. since Google won't step down to replying to solicitations by mere mortals,
can an official Fedora or Red Hat enquiry be made to clarify the situation?

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Summary|Google Droid fonts          |Google Droid fonts
                   |specification               |licensing

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional
comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Daniel Berlin  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #1 from Daniel Berlin   2008-11-22 17:33:10 EDT ---
Not sure why you think "Google won't step down to replying to solicitations by
mere mortals".
Every query i'm aware of about this situation has been answered (some by me
personally).
If you sent a query that was not answered, please privately provide me details
so i can make sure it doesn't happen again.

In any case, the licensing info embedded on the fonts was simply wrong when it
was pushed out, and is being corrected.
They are licensed under Apache 2.0.
The fixed TTF files should be pushed to GIT soon, if they aren't there already.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #2 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-11-23 03:15:42 EDT ---
(In reply to comment #1)
.
> Every query i'm aware of about this situation has been answered (some by me
> personally).

Thank you for the answer. I guess is was my frustration speaking, the Droid
fonts have been announced a long time ago, and the situation is still not fixed
> In any case, the licensing info embedded on the fonts was simply wrong when it
> was pushed out, and is being corrected.
> They are licensed under Apache 2.0.
> The fixed TTF files should be pushed to GIT soon, if they aren't there already.

They aren't today. I don't know if we can touch them at all before they are
fixed.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #3 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-11-23 06:00:20 EDT ---
BTW, I hadn't noticed but it seems even wikipedia is aware of the problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_(font)#License_controversy

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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--- Comment #4 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-11-23 06:05:32 EDT ---
P.P.S. A nice versionned tarball or zip with a detached license text on an
official site that does not require digging in git to find the fonts would be
appreciated

Are the fonts at version 1.0.107, or will the next font dump use the same
versions?

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #5 from Tom "spot" Callaway   2008-11-24 13:19:05 EDT ---
I've spoken with Chris DiBona at Google on this issue, and he assures me that
this is simply an accidental oversight. We should see an updated font drop in
the next week (this week is an holiday week in the US, which may temporarily
delay it).

Nicolas, we'll just wait for this new drop to package these up.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Bug Zapper  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Version|rawhide                     |10

Jon Stanley  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Version|10                          |rawhide

--- Comment #6 from Bug Zapper   2008-11-26 00:46:48 EDT ---

This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 10
development cycle.
Changing version to '10'.

More information and reason for this action is here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

--- Comment #7 from Jon Stanley   2008-11-26 14:13:42 EDT ---
Fixing version to align with rawhide again.  Sorry for the noise.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #8 from Tom "spot" Callaway   2008-12-09 16:32:22 EDT ---
Chris DiBona at Google let me know that the change has happened upstream:
http://review.source.android.com/5401

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Blocks|                            |475661

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional
comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |VERIFIED

--- Comment #9 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-12-09 18:00:54 EDT ---
Verified the new files. Thanks to everyone involved.

Posted the package review request in bug #475661

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional
comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|VERIFIED                    |CLOSED
         Resolution|                            |UPSTREAM

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional
comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

[e-mail] changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |rex.camposagrado@ascenderco
                   |                            |rp.com

--- Comment #10 from [e-mail]  2009-02-09 17:18:29 EDT ---
Ascender just released OpenType Pro versions of the Droid fonts here:
http://www.droidfonts.co%E2%80%8Bm . This might be interesting to creative
professionals who would like to use the Droid fonts in their design projects.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #11 from Tom "spot" Callaway   2009-02-10 11:05:25 EDT ---
It is worth noting that the "Pro" fonts are not under a Free License.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #12 from [e-mail]  2009-02-10 11:47:30 EDT ---
While the necessity for Ascender to offer the Droid Pro fonts under a free
license may not be extremely well received by the open-source community, please
be aware that while we partner with several open-source providers and are happy
to build fonts for these partners, no business model exists for font vendors if
we were to release our IP directly under an open license.

For the record, Our http://www.DroidFonts.com site does not offer any fonts
under any free license.

We have taken the Droid fonts under Apache v2 and have enhanced the Droid fonts
as allowed under Apache v2. We are now offering the enhanced Droid Pro fonts
under a proprietary EULA for a license fee, with proper credit being given to
the underlying Apache covered portion of the fonts which we are licensing.

We built the Droid Pro fonts because the professional graphic design and
creative market was asking for them (in part to support the Android effort),
but these users require enhanced character ranges and sometimes want OTF format
fonts. There are also OEMs which require additional language support and
additional weights and styles of Droid.
> From our perspective, this is a win-win situation. The open community has

another outstanding set of fonts (to add to the Liberation fonts we built for
Red Hat) and we have the opportunity to satisfy demands for additional Droid
support. We see this as very much like the business models of the Linux OS
providers, who often supply a good base OS for free and then are able to stay
in business by providing enhancements and support.

I hope this helps to explain what we're up to.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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--- Comment #13 from Tom "spot" Callaway   2009-02-10 12:02:15 EDT ---
No, I understand what you're doing. I may disagree with your motivations (I do
work for a company whose entire model is based around FOSS licensing), but I
understand them.

My post was intended to clarify to anyone who might come across your post and
start to package the Pro fonts for submission in Fedora, as I would have to
immediately block such an action on licensing grounds.

[Bug 472635] Google Droid fonts licensing

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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comments should be made in the comments box of this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472635

--- Comment #14 from Rex Camposagrado   2009-02-10 12:20:44 EDT ---
Correction to my previous Comment #12: While the necessity for Ascender to
(not) offer the Droid Pro fonts under a free license may not be extremely well
received by the open-source community,