Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!olivea!uunet!pmafire!uudell!bigtex!texsun!newstop!exodus!appserv!angel.Eng.Sun.COM!henry From: henry@angel.Eng.Sun.COM (Henry McGilton) Newsgroups: comp.fonts Subject: Copyright AFM Files (was Looking for ITC Stone) Summary: More Questions Message-ID: <570@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 3 May 91 22:22:12 GMT References: <91116.131021FLEGLEI@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> Sender: news@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM Lines: 22 In article , karl@apple-gunkies.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Karl Berry) writes: * Adobe makes the AFM files for all their fonts (as far as I know) * publically available (through their archive server). The AFM * files specify the widths and kerning pairs. Apologies for taking only a part of your posting out of context. You're quite right Adobe make the AFM files publically available. An intriguing issue, though, is that the publically available AFM files contain copyright notices. I'm interested to know precisely what is copyrighted in files that they give away. I can write a PostScript program that I can throw at the printer, and have AFM data come back up the communications hose. Such generated AFM files, unfortunately, can not contain either kerning information nor composites information, because this information is not in the fonts. So what IS being copyrighted in AFM files that are publically available? I asked somebody at Adobe but never got a reply. If anybody at Adobe would like to give an answer I'd be grateful, rather than just a lot of people speculating. ........ Henry