[XeTeX] IM Fell Type and XeTeX

[S. Ekin Kocabas]

Response of Igino Marini copied below.

I did not have the intention to teach anyone how to think or act. I deeply
regret having offended Igino Marini.

The description for changing the em size will potentially introduce errors
to the font as commented below.

Best Regards,

Ekin


On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 1:23 PM, Igino Marini <mail at iginomarini.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> 1) I would like to say that I have the freedom to write the license the way
> I like, without having to listen to someone teaching me how should I think
> and act. You're not the first and won't be the last anyway.
> 2) This is not a case of interoperability with independently created
> software but a known bug in Adobe Acrobat. Acting the way you did makes the
> possibility that the mentioned bug could be eliminated even more difficultly
> because you're eliminating the reason. You are not obliged to "interoperate"
> with Acrobat since there are pdf reader working fine.
> 3) The procedure in Fontforge you described introduce "some errors
> detected". At 99% it means kerning or other things messed up. I made "nearly
> free" the Fell Types, among other things, to show the quality of my
> autospacing and autokrning tool. I asked not to modify the font just to
> prevent that someone thinking to be smart mess up my work because I usually
> want to be responsible of my errors only. Expecially in presence of
> "some errors detected". Thank you for having shown that I failed on this.
>
> You should have contacted me before. Here I'm saying that the terms of my
> license are valid and you should delete the thing you've done. I don't like
> this kind of lack of respect. It's just what makes people change their mind
> about giving their work away for free. Surely not a problem of yours.
>
> Igino Marini
>
>
> 2009/2/14 S. Ekin Kocabas <kocabas at stanford.edu>
>
> Thank you for the reminder. I do not in any way intend to circulate the
>> modified version of IM Fell. The modification I did was a rescaling of the
>> unit length used to define all the other lengths used in the font
>> description [at least to the limited extend that I'm familiar with fonts].
>> Had I not done that, then I could not have used the font at all with XeTeX.
>> I guess this issue is being observed for other fonts as well, and here's how
>> I did the changes.
>>
>> Operating System: Ubuntu 8.04
>>
>>
>>    1. Save the font files to a folder you know
>>    2. run fontforge (for details on how to install it look at
>>    http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/)
>>    3. open the font to be modified
>>    4. go to Element->Font Info->General->Em Size
>>       1. Change Em size to 1000
>>       2. Make sure scale outlines option is checked
>>    5. Now it is the time to save the font. File->Save As->FontName.sfd
>>    (this is FontForge's own binary format)
>>    6. Export the font to open type format by File->Generate Fonts->Choose
>>    Open Type (CFF)
>>    7. There will be some errors detected, ignore them and click the save
>>    button
>>    8. Exit fontforge, test the fonts with XeTeX
>>
>>
>> There are possibly ways in which the above procedure can be enhanced. If
>> I'm missing something (related to kerning or any other aspect), please
>> correct me.
>>
>> Now I'll write a bit more on modifying software.
>>
>> First let me begin with the following quote<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal>
>> "the courts have long<http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/977/977.F2d.1510.92-15655.html>
>> recognized<http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/203/203.F3d.596.99-15852.html>that copying software while reverse engineering is a fair use when done for
>> purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software"
>>
>> I am not a lawyer, and therefore, I cannot legally comment on the legal
>> aspects of modifying a font file. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that
>> there are cases where tweaking a software (even when it is produced for the
>> purposes of money making and is copyright protected) is not illegal.
>>
>> If someone spends a lot of time and effort to create a font and then
>> publishes it on the net for everyone to use, that person deserves to be
>> applauded. Therefore, thank you Igino Marini<http://www.iginomarini.com/>for making IM Fell available. It is my understanding that, Igino would like
>> to know about how his creation circulates in the internet. Let's take a look
>> at his license <http://iginomarini.com/fell/the-revival-fonts/>:
>>
>> This font is a nearly free font. You can use it freely but:
>>
>>    1. If you want to use it in publications on any kind of media you have
>>    to put in the following quote as a note: «The Fell Types are digitally
>>    reproduced by Igino Marini. www.iginomarini.com» and let the designer
>>    know where you used it.
>>    2. You can't change the font and its contents (including outlines,
>>    kerning and other data as well).
>>    3. You can distribute it freely with license aside but not sell it in
>>    any way. Any other different use has to be authorized by the designer.
>>
>> Now, one could argue that the second clause in his license makes
>> modification of the font file illegal/unethical. However, it should be
>> remembered that, licenses cannot be written arbitrarily, they have to adhere
>> to a larger legal system. At least in the US, I believe the descriptions for
>> changing the em size---so that texts typeset using IM Fell would look
>> correctly in the buggy pdf display software---are legal (if the instructions
>> above actually change the outlines and kerning, well, they should be
>> modified).
>>
>> Why am I writing so long on this issue? Mainly because I do not want to
>> live in a world where I would have to deal with lawyers for every part of my
>> civic activities. I think people should have the basic rights to modify the
>> technologies they use, to tweak them if need be. This of course does not
>> mean that font designers should have no say in their work, or that they
>> should not be enumerated for their effort.
>>
>> Is there a way around this? Well, Creative Commons licenses may be a way
>> to resolve these issues. If you have not heard of them, I would strongly
>> suggest that you take a look at it
>> http://creativecommons.org/
>>
>> Lastly, I would be very interested in learning about Igino's response to
>> this discussion, therefore, I cc'ed him to this email and provided a quick
>> summary of this email chain below.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ekin
>>
>>
>> Feb 10, 2009 --- Pepe Romero says "Hello, I am testing in XeTeX the
>> gorgeous Fell typefaces, digitalized and issued freely by Igino Marini (
>> http://iginomarini.com/fell/). (Please do try them.) I have a problem,
>> though. In XeTeX (latest TeX Live 2008) the letters of the text appear
>> typset one over another (as if there was a kerning problem)" and asks why
>> that is.
>>
>> Feb 10, 2009 --- Jonathan Kew says that "This is a problem that shows up
>> when using OpenType/CFF fonts that do not use the normal 1000-unit emsquare
>> that is traditional for PostScript outlines. If you view the PDF with an
>> older version of Acrobat Reader (e.g., version 5 or even 7, I think) the
>> text will display correctly, but Reader 8 disregards the font matrix entry
>> and this results in mis-scaled glyphs" and that "I think it can reasonably
>> be considered a bug in the PDF reader(s)" and also that "If you try the
>> TrueType version of the fonts, those should work fine."
>>
>> Feb 10, 2009 --- S. Ekin Kocabas says that "I used FontForge to rescale IM
>> Fell to use 1000 unit emsqure, it then worked fine."
>>
>> Feb 11, 2009 --- Gareth Hughes asks how this can be done.
>>
>> Feb 11, 2009 --- Peter Baker raises the issue that should changes be made,
>> this may be against the license with which IM Fell fonts were released.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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