[OS X TeX] Re: Macintouch report on TeX versus Word

[Alain Schremmer]

On Jan 24, 2009, at 5:12 PM, David Watson wrote:

> On Jan 24, 2009, at 3:45 PM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>>
>> One thing though: I believe—I have not checked, that using Mac  
>> fonts is not acceptable for a GNU free doc license.
>
> A search for "font" at the home of the latest GNU Free  
> Documentation License comes up with zero matches, so the problem  
> cannot be with GNU FDL.
>
> Having said that, I would suggest that any limits on the usage of a  
> particular font would arise from the designer of that particular font.
> One way of finding said limitations would be to look in the Font  
> Info of Apple's "Font Book" application.
>
> From what I can tell, there is no "copy protection" or restrictions  
> of use on any of the "Apple" trademarked fonts, which is what I  
> understand you to mean by "Mac fonts".
>
> Times New Roman, from Monotype, has a License agreement stating  
> that their "software" may not be copied or distributed, and they  
> have a handy phone number that you may call if you have any  
> questions about what the limitations of your usage rights are.
> I would suggest that you look for any such Licenses for fonts that  
> you wish to use in a document and contact the appropriate  
> representative if you are so concerned about this sort of thing.
>
> I would personally assume that "distribution" of the "software"  
> means distribution of the font file in a directly usable format,  
> not as an embedded representation inside a pdf document.
> This seems to be backed up by the online publisher Lulu.com, which  
> I would assume should know and be concerned about such things:


The belief I expressed above was just in case someone were  
preoccupied with fonts and the FDL were a problem.

But your response, while it doesn't do anything for me since I know  
absolutely nothing about fonts, can't really tell one font from  
another, and am using whatever font comes with the simplest possible  
installation of LaTeX, will provide those who do care about fonts  
with very valuable information since, as I had a feeling but as you  
made clear, this is a bit of a murky area.

Regards
--schremmer