[XeTeX] Arial and Times New Roman license?

[Arash Zeini]

On Tuesday 22 December 2009, Peter Baker wrote:
> Adam Twardoch (List) wrote:
> > They are closed-source packages with a very limited right of
> > distribution which only applies to that particular version of the fonts.
> > I must admit that I was somewhat surprised: many opensource vendors are
> > known for bashing Microsoft and labeling it "an evil company", but if
> > Microsoft publishes some quality fonts with a permission to distribute,
> > all the vendors jump on it like mice onto a piece of cheese, rather than
> > investing in developing quality fonts themselves.
> >
> > I consider this moral relativism, but what do I know :)
> 
> Many Linux users do download and install the "MS Core Fonts" package. I
> don't know the details of every Linux distribution, but if you look at
> the repositories of, say Ubuntu and Fedora, two of the biggest, you
> won't find them. For Ubuntu users they are available through the
> "Multiverse" repository, which hosts "non-free" software (e.g. the Adobe
> Flash plugin); Canonical warns that it does not support or maintain this
> software. But if you look more closely you'll find that the fonts
> themselves aren't even on the server, but only an installer that grabs
> them from the Sourceforge site.
> 
> This may seem a distinction without a difference to some, but it's
> pretty clear that Linux vendors are not encouraging their users to
> install these fonts, and some (e.g. Red Hat) have gone to some trouble
> and expense to make it unnecessary.
> 
> Peter

See also Debian. They too offer only the installer, ttf-mscorefonts-installer, 
in  contrib:

"This package allows for easy installation of the Microsoft True Type Core 
Fonts for the Web including:

  Andale Mono
  Arial Black
  Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Comic Sans MS (Bold)
  Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Impact
  Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  Webdings

You will need an Internet connection to download these fonts if you don't 
already have them.

NOTE: the package ttf-liberation contains free variants of the Times, Arial 
and Courier fonts. It's better to use those instead unless you specifically 
need one of the other fonts from this package."

Best,
Arash