[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] New: Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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Summary: Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=637606

Summary: Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts
           Product: Fedora
           Version: rawhide
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: medium
          Priority: low
         Component: liberation-fonts
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]
         QAContact: [e-mail]
                CC: [e-mail],
                    [e-mail],
                    [e-mail], [e-mail]
    Classification: Fedora

Description of problem:
Chromium OS includes new fonts called Arimo, Cousine, and Tinos. These fonts
are, in fact, identical in design to the the Liberation fonts; more accurately,
they're new font files direct from Steve Matteson using the same character
designs as Liberation. However, these fonts include a vastly larger character
set, including such glyphs as Polytonic Greek, Altaic Cyrillic and IPA that
might be useful for certain locales.

The latest revision of the Chromium fonts, as of now, is downloadable here:
http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromeos-localmirror/distfiles/crosc...

And the relevant issues from Chromium OS are here:
http://code.google.com/p/chromium-os/issues/detail?id=5287
http://code.google.com/p/chromium-os/issues/detail?id=5941

Would it be possible to work with Google and/or Steve Matteson to get these new
characters merged into the Liberation fonts as well?

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

[Red Hat Bugzilla]

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=637606

--- Comment #1 from Jens Petersen  2010-09-27 02:08:00 EDT ---
What is their license?

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=637606

--- Comment #2 from Nicolas Mailhot  2010-09-27 03:50:07 EDT ---
Probably not the one we want.

But then that's Red Hat legal's fault for not using a standard  font license
such as the OFL that would have been Google-compatible

(btw I've not had the time to look at liberation for a long time, I'm pretty
sure the new narrow fonts fail repo-font-audit and the WWS naming test. Please
fix the fonts)

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=637606

--- Comment #3 from Cody Boisclair  2010-09-27 08:06:32 EDT ---
The new fonts are indeed released under the OFL, according to their metadata.

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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--- Comment #4 from Pravin Satpute  2010-09-27 10:34:09 EDT ---
i am doubtful, can we pick glyphs from OFL licensed font?

we are using "License:          Liberation"

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]
             Blocks|                            |182235(FE-Legal)

--- Comment #5 from Nicolas Mailhot  2010-09-27 13:36:59 EDT ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> i am doubtful, can we pick glyphs from OFL licensed font?
>
> we are using "License:          Liberation"

Nope. Liberation is a weird GPL-based licence and OFL, while permissive,
includes some "additional restrictions" that won't map

The only good way out of this mess is for Red Hat to negociate with Ascender
(and other major contributors such as Oracle) the OFL-ing of Liberation.

Quite frankly, I don't see much a future for Liberation unless its licensing is
fixed. The days of custom font licenses are past. A gpl-ish standard font
license would have been nice but since the FSF never bothered with it gpl-ish
fonts are dying from lack of license standardisation.

Anyway, this is a problem for spot

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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Nicolas Mailhot  changed:

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

--- Comment #6 from Nicolas Mailhot  2010-09-27 13:37:54 EDT ---
Let's make that clear, reassigning

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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--- Comment #7 from Jens Petersen  2011-02-03 00:49:24 EST ---
Hmm maybe croscorefonts could even replace liberation fonts?

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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--- Comment #8 from Jens Petersen  2011-02-03 01:08:09 EST ---
Anyway given that the fonts are under OFL and a different name,
they could be packaged for Fedora anyway and then people
can choose the fonts they prefer?

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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--- Comment #9 from Nicolas Mailhot  2011-02-03 03:54:53 EST ---
Sure. Packaging new fonts is always good.

It's sad that the licensing mistakes made at liberation release time will
probably make it an evolutionnary dead-end (I don't see any third-party
nowadays prefering to contribute to a project with Liberation's weird licensing
when an OFL alternative is available), and will also prevent merging with the
Google fonts (who wants to talk with SUN/Oracle to know if their contributions
can be added to the Google fonts under the OFL ?)

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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

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Tom "spot" Callaway  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |CLOSED
         Resolution|                            |CANTFIX
        Last Closed|                            |2012-03-16 16:35:56

--- Comment #10 from Tom "spot" Callaway  2012-03-16 16:35:56 EDT ---
I don't see a good way of doing this. I think the only option would be for
those to be packaged separately. I agree with Nicolas's sentiment in Comment 9.

[Fedora-i18n-bugs] [Bug 637606] Merge new characters from Chromium OS core fonts

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Parag  changed:

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

--- Comment #11 from Parag  2012-03-21 05:07:59 EDT ---
I have added a new package review for croscore-fonts in bug#805416