At Wed, 19 Nov 2003 19:08:24 +0100, Martin Schulze wrote: > Steve Langasek wrote: > > I'm not sure there's any reason to believe that there are licensing > > problems with these fonts. > > > > The official reply from Hitachi on this question, as posted at > > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200310/msg00323.html>, > > seems quite unambiguous: they acknowledge that there are no laws on the > > books, in Japan or elsewhere, which give them grounds to claim that > > these fonts infringe their intellectual property rights. Rather, they > > have referenced previous out-of-court settlements as precedent. Unless > > Japanese law is created in a much different manner than it is in the > > rest of the world, the results of out-of-court settlements do not > > constitute legal precedents; they may provide insight into the legal > > counsel's assessment of their chances of winning a suit, but there are > > other factors that contribute to such an assessment besides the letter > > of the law -- most notably, the respective depths of the parties' > > pockets. > > > > I don't believe that Debian should ingratiate itself to corporations who > > throw their weight around to carve out intellectual property without the > > sanction of the courts. Unless and until Hitachi is taking legal action > > against our distributors or users in Japan, I think Debian ought to > > ignore these apparently baseless claims.
So you expose our debian users to font right war. It's not fair and admirable attitude. In Japan, making fonts need a lot of money. There are font market. Font vendor claims such infringement. Font right is difficult problem, but AFAIK in Japan there is a precedent that said not to sell a pirated fonts. In addition, font right is like "design right", not intellectual property. > So... the situation won't be changed for r2 and we can discuss this > for r3. Please replace the newer package which have been queue in r3. Keep in mind that ttf-kochi-* fonts are widely used in Japan. Regards, -- gotom
