Re: Copyright grant for Adobe Times fonts?

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Robinson Tryon wrote:

> I've been working on a program that includes the Adobe Times font from
> the debian package x11/xfonts-75dpi.  That package is assembled from
> xfree86 sources.

> Several other fonts that come from xfree86 have explict copyright
> permissions -- for example the Bitstream Charter fonts, but I have
> been unable to find any record of Adobe giving a license for their
> 'Times' fonts.  I asked debian-legal, but no one could provide me with
> solid information about the upstream licensing.

> The font files themselves have "all-rights-reserved" copyright notices
> for Adobe and Digital:
> Copyright (c) 1984, 1987 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.
> Copyright (c) 1988, 1991 Digital Equipment Corporation.  All Rights
> Reserved.  Times is a trademark of Linotype-Hell AG and/or its
> subsidiaries.

> The upstream license' section of the COPYRIGHT file for the
> xfonts-75dpi package does not appear to contain any pertinent
> information, other than mentioning Adobe's name in a long list of
> contributors.

> Does anyone know where I could find the explicit license from
> Adobe/Digital for these fonts to be included in Xfree86?

You are confusing copyright and license.  The license says how the work can 
be redistributed.  The copyright says who has the authority to grant such a 
license.  Rest assured that XFree86 does not include any font that cannot be 
freely redistributed.   And by "freely redistributed", I mean without any 
incumberances whatsoever.

<flamebait>This excludes anything under GPL</flamebait>

Marc.

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