Fwd: Liberation fonts - was Re: [Fsfe-uk] Accountants need MS file formats - was Re: Mac OS X refund

[Jon Grant]

[Resent as somehow the cc was set to
address@hidden when I first posted]
Hi

On 27/01/2008, Dave Crossland <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 27/01/2008, Jon Grant <address@hidden> wrote:
> > The
> >  question has to be if OpenOffice will support exporting Liberation -> MS
> >  font names.
>
> No, trademark law prohibits the distribution of software to do that,
> as long as the trademark is in use, AIUI.

Well there is some mapping, because when I load a MS-Word file using
"Arial" it comes out in a decent sans-serif font on my other Ubuntu
machine (which does not have the MS fonts installed).

So I see that OO should export a decent mapping of sans-serif and
monotype fonts. "URW Gothic L"  -> Comic Sans isn't a good match!

So no one is allowed to call their Liberation font "Arial" in the
software font name list or alias file?

> > As OO doesn't manage to export "URW Gothic L" (which looks
> >  like Tahoma) as MS's Tahoma, just comes out in some Comic font.
>
> Tahoma looks nothing like URW Gothic, which is a version of "Century Gothic"
>
> http://www.augrin.com/h/gothic_b.png
> http://www.identifont.com/samples/microsoft/Tahoma.gif
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic

Ok, they do look different, but in my view they are similar ;) I just
use Arial now.

> >  I've not heard of these Liberation fonts.
> > ...
> >  Hope the Liberation fonts get added to Ubuntu soon.. although they
> >  strike me as being similar to "Bitstream Vera Sans" that I use at the
> >  moment on Kubuntu.
>
> Haven't we just been discussing their sketchy GPL+terms licensing? :-)

Yes, but it doesn't seem that bad to me. Surely RedHat will fix it if
it really is such an issue? And Ubuntu typically bundles even sketchy
packages with its distro. Redhat used to bundle the non-free Netscape
back in the day too I remember!

Cheers, Jon