[texhax] stix fonts license and TeX

[Karl Berry]

There has been a massive font project (stixfonts.org) underway for years
to produce a new comprehensive font set for mathematics.

Unfortunately their draft license
(http://stixfonts.org/user_license.html) is definitely not free.  It
forbids modification of the characters as designed, and places
restrictions on what can be sold.  So, ironically enough, this project
to "serve the scientific and engineering community" (among others) will
not be able to be included in the free TeX distributions, such as teTeX,
MiKTeX, and TeX Live, or the free operating system distributions, such
as GNU/Linux -- all in widespread use among the scientific community.

It may not be too late to affect the outcome.  If you are concerned by
this and moved to do so, please let them know.  There is a form to
submit comments at http://www.aip.org/stixfonts/contact.jsp?eid=lic
(there is no direct email address to send to, unfortunately).

If you are a working scientist or mathematician who would be affected by
this, that would be especially useful to mention.

Thanks,
Karl

As background, here is their self-described "mission" from their web site:

    The mission of the Scientific and Technical Information Exchange
    (STIX) font creation project is the preparation of a comprehensive
    set of fonts that serve the scientific and engineering community in
    the process from manuscript creation through final publication, both
    in electronic and print formats. Toward this purpose, the STIX fonts
    will be made available, under royalty-free license, to anyone,
    including publishers, software developers, scientists, students, and
    the general public.