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Re: courR14h.pcf from H.fonts.tar.Z



Avner Lottem wrote:
> 
> Eli Marmor,

Avner Lottem,
I would be glad to discuss this issue with you by phone,
and to answer all your questions, and not to bother this
busy mailing list with our garbage (unfortunately, I know
about many subscribers who left linux-il because of too
much e-mail, and it is too bad). Anyway, you didn't try
to call me (my 050-237338 is the most widespread and
famous cellular phone number in Israel, and everybody is
invited to use it), so you didn't give me a chance to
discuss it privately.

> Checking the subject file from the package
> http://www.elmar.co.il/wwh/wwh/xfiles/H.fonts/H.fonts.tar.Z,

(note - accessible from
http://www.elmar.co.il/wwh/wwh/xfiles/H.fonts/     - E.M.)

>                                                              I noticed that
> the Hebrew characters there are identical to the Hebrew characters that I
> submitted to sunsite.unc.edu:  /pub/Linux/X11/fonts/hebxfonts-0.1.tgz on July
> 1995.

"the Hebrew characters there" ???   or the Hebrew characters
of ___1___ of ___38___ files fonts there ?
Anyway, regarding to courR14h.{bdf,pcf}, you are right. I
don't remember that I ever designed such a font, and it is
really included in the package you mentioned. I don't know
how this font was misplaced into my freeware fonts, and it is
my fault. Anyway, I am willing to remove it __immediately__
(although the font in your package does not have your copyright,
but only Adobe and DEC).

>        Even the name of the file is the same, except that I submitted a bdf
> file.

Yes, my policy is not to put BDF files on net but PCF, because
many users don't know how to run bdftopcf and/or mkfontdir,
especially in my package, that some of the lines of fonts.dir
are not generated by mkfontdir, and especially now, when all
the workstations already support (Sof-Sof...) PCF.

> Regarding copyrights: the font contains English characters, as well as Hebrew.
> The English font had copyright on it, as you can see if you look at my
> package.  Thus, you also violated the copyright of the original English font,
> which was owned by Adobe Systems, Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp.

I *CAN* see it at my package too. I didn't remove it!
Why blaming without checking?  The original copyright IS there:
**************************************************************
* my_shell_prompt%  strings courR14h.pcf | grep -i Copyright *
* Copyright (c) 1987 Adobe Systems, Inc., Portions Copyright *
* 1988 Digital Equipment Corp.                               *
**************************************************************
While *some* of the fonts in my freeware package contain my
copyright (and are freeware!), this font has only this
Adobe's and DEC's copyright in it!

Actually, the BDF file contains some comments, but it was not
me who removed those lines;  bdftopcf did it!  It copies only
the "COPYRIGHT" lines (from the "STARTPROPERTIES") to the PCF
file. Please refer to X Consortium (hurry up!  they close
their office  :-(  :-(  :-(  on December 31!).

> And about the rest of the package: most of it appears on ftp sites for at
> least a year.  How about giving their authors some credit too?

Because the authors of the fonts, permitted me. Actually, the
"authors" are *ME* in most of the cases...
Why do they appear on so many ftp sites?  because I distributed
them, free of charge, and even forgave my copyrights, as long
as their names were not changed. Most of my fonts were developed
on 1991-1993. There are so many vendors (e.g. Sun, SGI, HP,
Data-General, etc.) who adopted them, and there are more than
a thousand of workstations in Israel that have them installed.
Initially, the fonts were part of the Hebrew support (which is
a product of me), but I put them in the public domain in order
to help the Israeli UNIX market.

There are hundreds of witnesses, who got the Hebrew support many
years ago. Ask Shraga Shachak, Mankal E.M. Computing (Sun), who
has it since 1992. Ask Zvi Bruner, SaMankal Team (Data-General),
who has it since 1992. Ask Alon Barnea, Mankal SGI Israel, who
has it since 1993. Ask HP staff, who has it since 1993. Ask vendors
of SPARC compatibles (Minix, Ankor). Ask most of the UNIX software
vendors in Israel (e.g. Oracle/John-Bryce, Tivoli/Applicom, etc.).
The other parts of the Hebrew support, which are (sorry!) commercial,
remained protected, Baruch HaShem. Do you think I could protect the
part of the fonts after putting it in the public domain ???

Details about originalities - my freeware package contains:

* Some script (hand-writing) fonts, designed and developed by
  me, in xfedor (of Daniel Dardailler, who I became a friend of
  at my time in the X Consortium). I am willing to go with you
  to a grapholog to check originality (just joking :-)  )
* Some bible (Messora) fonts, designed and developed by me
  (again, xfedor).
* 3 public-domain fonts of Joseph Friedman, who contributed
  them to X11R5 (which is credited by me). Unfortunately,
  Joseph Friedman put his name in comments which are removed
  by bdftopcf. It may be a good idea to mention his name in
  my README file.
* Some VGA fonts, designed by a localizer of VGA cards, who
  gave me full rights to use them under X. I developed a
  program that read them and generated BDF files out of them.
* Some Rashi fonts, designed by a friend in an old and propriatery
  format of SunView. This friend gave me full rights to use them
  under X. I developed a program that read them and generated BDF
  files out of them. The English characters of these fonts, were
  designed and developed by me, in xfedor (Gottic glyphs - Old
  Latin).
* Some fonts similar to "Chaim" (which is not a protected name),
  designed and developed by me, and called "Maariv" (although
  "Chaim" is not protected).
* An anonymous font, used by E.M. Computing and DEC, without any
  copyright. Nobody knows its origin, but I took it, modified it
  and re-produced it, and now it seems to be popular.
* A modified version of *one* of the Webfont fonts. I credit
  Webfont. This font is so ugly, so I am going to develop a
  replacement by Fontographer (it will be free, of course!).
* A Type1 fixed font, which I coded in PostScript (!) by vi (!!!)
  Actually, Type1 is harder than normal PostScript, so it was a
  very hard job.

I am going to continue to provide the Israeli UNIX community with
a freeware stuff (and commercial stuff too - I have a wife and a
baby, and they need food). But if the members of this mailing list
will demand it  -  I am willing to cancel the availabillity of my
free fonts (just because of one font, uncopyrighted by Anver, that
was misplaced in mistake). I think it will be a mistake to cancel
it. What do you think, Linuxers?  I am willing to be judged by you!

P.S. I see that you use the convention "*h.bdf" in your fonts.
This convention was invented by me, on 1991. I added "H" before
of the "." in 7 bit fonts (no longer supported), and "h" in 8
bit fonts. Because I don't have neither a Patent nor a Copyright
for this convention, you may continue using it.

-- 
Eli Marmor
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