Between 1998 and 2004 the FreeType project developed an implementation of the OpenType Layout specification (formerly TrueType Open), called ftlayout, that eventually was ripped out of FreeType 2 and was salvaged by Pango and Qt developers and integrated into their layout engines. The code was further developed by the two projects separately and was merged back and renamed to HarfBuzz [1]. The ftlayout code, like the rest of FreeType, was dual-licensed under GPL+FTL. The license, while quite liberal, posed delicate incompatibility issues with Pango's LGPL license because of the so-called advertisement clause in the FTL. The FreeType project was contacted and asked to consider relicensing ftvalid to resolve this issue. Recently the FreeType team retroactively relicensed the portions of ftlayout used in HarfBuzz under a new, simplified, license [2], and subsequently, thanks to agreements from Trolltech ASA and Red Hat, Inc., the HarfBuzz developers are happy to perform a similar change to HarfBuzz. We hereby and retroactively relicense HarfBuzz under the following terms: ======================================================================= Permission is hereby granted, without written agreement and without license or royalty fees, to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose, provided that the above copyright notice and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies of this software. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. ======================================================================= The license is commonly known as "Old-Style" MIT and is more liberal than both GPL and FTL. Obviously, this change is only limited to the code from us and does not automatically extend to developments made by others on top of HarfBuzz. The master branch of the HarfBuzz git repository holds this change as of a few minutes ago. Users are encouraged to update source files of their copies if they would like to use the code under the new license. Behdad Esfahbod [1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/HarfBuzz [2] http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/freetype-announce/2008-01/msg00000.html
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