Re: Bug#1135180: Bug#902981: DFSG status of fonts-font-awesome

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From: Soren Stoutner <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:32:36 -0700
Message-ID: <12630315.zAa99ISigo@soren-desktop>
Organization: Debian
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0

On Tuesday, June 2, 2026 11:28:49=E2=80=AFPM Mountain Standard Time Julian =
Gilbey=20
wrote:
> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 02:14:14PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > [...]
> > Fonts may have a preferred source form that is not textual but binary.
> > For another example of that, see etoys which is in non-free despite
> > being DFSG-free: It is kept out of main due to concerns that its source
> > format might be too alien for the Debian security team to reasonably do
> > audits on the codebase.
> >=20
> > But from a legal standpoint, code either have freely licensed *source*
> > or they don't. And that applies to fonts in the sense that either the
> > font *is* its own source or it isn't.
> > [...]
>=20
> Dear all,
>=20
> I've been mulling over this, and have had a thought.
>=20
> I am not a font designer, but extrapolating from what Rob has been
> saying, I think it is a reasonable presumption that most fonts are not
> designed in FontForge or similar open source software.  And that is
> surely the case for a significant proportion of the fonts distributed
> in Debian; we certainly don't get the "source code" for them (which,
> in the case of FontForge, would be an SFD file).  I looked at the
> Debian source for a random font on my system, and all it contains is
> the ttf files and the OFL license text.  Looking at the upstream
> webpage, the references there include guidance on how to use FontLab.
> So presumably the ttf format is not the preferred upstream format for
> this particular font.
>=20
> If we go down the route of excluding FontAwesome, it would also be
> incumbent upon us to do an audit of all the fonts shipped by Debian,
> and we would probably end up with almost no fonts at all, or have to
> move them all to non-free.

Beginning many years ago, Debian used to ship a lot of fonts by simply=20
packaging upstream TTF files.  This is before my time, but from what I have=
=20
read this was because open-source font systems either didn=E2=80=99t exist =
or weren=E2=80=99t=20
packaged for Debian.  In the intervening years that has generally been fixe=
d. =20
Because of that there has been a recent effort to go back and actually buil=
d=20
all the fonts we used to just ship.

As such, I think it would be appropriate for there to be a general audit of=
=20
fonts and a removal to non-free of any font for which we don=E2=80=99t have=
 the source=20
or for which we can=E2=80=99t build it using a free toolchain.

=2D-=20
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]
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