Well the reason i care is because i use a distro that is exclusively libre (Guix). I do have to use a separate channel to get the regular kernel cause i simply can’t go without it, but i figured i may as well use libre-only as much as possible, especially for something as easily replaceable as a font. I can still get the font by other means but chose to use something else. I’m currently using Lato, which is fine and i’m getting used to it now, but i probably still prefer the look of Ubuntu. In the terminal i use Mononoki, have been using it for years now and haven’t even felt the need to try anything else, i still love how it looks.
The problem appears to be around the requirement that modified versions which are not “substantially changed” must maintain the “Ubuntu” name - section 2.3 of the license:
2.3 Modified Versions which are not Substantially Changed must be renamed to both
1. retain the name of the Original Version and
2. add additional naming elements to distinguish the Modified Version from the Original Version.
See Launchpad for a long discussion; the argument is that while the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) allow a copyright holder to require the name of derivatives be changed, the DFSG do not allow the copyright holder to specify how the name be changed. It is potentially worth noting that Fedora also considers the license non-free, but for different reasons.
TBH to me that doesn’t seem like strong enough grounds to not copy it manually to your Guix install, though I can see why distros might not want to package it. Canonical could probably have circumvented this issue by just using a more established license … one has to wonder how much of this is sheer ignorance, and how much is calculated discouragement of using their fonts on other distros.
Sounds like they talked to a lot of people and then either purposefully ignored them, or just literally stopped putting any work into the font license after the release. The FAQ you linked claims that they tried improve on the standard SIL license by adding clarifications, but the Fedora bug thread that’s linked in the Stackexchange answer looks like Canonical’s license is actually considerably more ambiguous.
Well the reason i care is because i use a distro that is exclusively libre (Guix). I do have to use a separate channel to get the regular kernel cause i simply can’t go without it, but i figured i may as well use libre-only as much as possible, especially for something as easily replaceable as a font. I can still get the font by other means but chose to use something else. I’m currently using Lato, which is fine and i’m getting used to it now, but i probably still prefer the look of Ubuntu. In the terminal i use Mononoki, have been using it for years now and haven’t even felt the need to try anything else, i still love how it looks.
The “regular kernel” is not libre?
https://canonical.com/legal/font-licence
“This licence allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely.”
It’s not one of the normal licenses, and idk a lawyer. Why can’t a distro include it?
According to https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/15792/debian-considers-the-ubuntu-font-family-non-free-why:
TBH to me that doesn’t seem like strong enough grounds to not copy it manually to your Guix install, though I can see why distros might not want to package it. Canonical could probably have circumvented this issue by just using a more established license … one has to wonder how much of this is sheer ignorance, and how much is calculated discouragement of using their fonts on other distros.
They go into a lot of detail here about why they forked an exisiting license, but i don’t understand the copyright stuff.
https://canonical.com/legal/font-licence/faq
Sounds like they talked to a lot of people and then either purposefully ignored them, or just literally stopped putting any work into the font license after the release. The FAQ you linked claims that they tried improve on the standard SIL license by adding clarifications, but the Fedora bug thread that’s linked in the Stackexchange answer looks like Canonical’s license is actually considerably more ambiguous.