The license.txt is very long, but most of it is just legalese, like
"Software and each of its components, including the source code,
documentation, appearance, structure and organization are owned by Red
Hat", "To the maximum extent permitted under applicable law, the
Software is provided and licensed "as is" [...] To the maximum extent
permitted by applicable law, Red Hat or any Red Hat authorized dealer
will not be liable to Client" (this is in addition to the warranty
already in GPL), "If any provision of this agreement is held to be
unenforceable, that shall not affect the enforceability of the remaining
provisions.", etc.

The parts that matter are:

a. It's under GPLv2 +/- 2 exceptions.

Exception 1: "As a special exception, if you create a document which
uses this font, and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font
into the document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting
document to be covered by the GNU General Public License..." This is the
font exception the FSF recommends (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
faq.html#FontException).  Since it gives you rights beyond GPL, it's not
a problem.

Exception 2: "As a further exception, any distribution of the object
code of the Software in a physical product must provide you the right to
access and modify the source code for the Software and to reinstall that
modified version of the Software in object code form on the same
physical product on which you received it."  This is very similar to a
GPLv3 restriction, and GPLv3 is approved for Ubuntu.  Why Red Hat chose
to add this clause in exception form to GPLv2, and only for a font, I
don't know.

Red Hat could clear the air by removing Exception 2 and the legalese,
and putting it under just GPLv2 or GPLv3 + font exception.

-- 
[needs-packaging] Ubuntu needs the Liberation Fonts
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/113889
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