On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 09:31:08AM +1000, Andrew Pam wrote:

On 22/07/13 03:15, Adam Bolte wrote:

...

I wouldn't define music or video as software either, for the same reasons - even though these are commonly distributed on CD or DVD.

People do define music and video as "software", though:

"Software means /computer instructions or data/. Anything that can be stored electronically is software, in contrast to storage devices and display devices which are called hardware." http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software.html

"soft.ware noun 2.anything that is not hardware but is used with hardware, especially audiovisual materials, as film, tapes, records, etc.: a studio fully equipped but lacking software. 3.Television Slang. prepackaged materials, as movies or reruns, used to fill out the major part of a station's program schedule." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/software?s=t

"software n 2. (Electronics) video cassettes and discs for use with a particular video system (Collins English Dictionary) software n 2. any material requiring the use of mechanical or electrical equipment, esp. audiovisual material such as film, tapes, or records. (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/software

"Definition of SOFTWARE b: materials for use with audiovisual equipment" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/software

The most trustworthy source of the above links would appear to be Webster, but that's also easily the most vague. Let's have a look at the dictionaries actually distributed by the Debian project as packages: From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: software n 1: (computer science) written programs or procedures or rules and associated documentation pertaining to the operation of a computer system and that are stored in read/write memory; "the market for software is expected to expand" [syn: {software}, {software program}, {computer software}, {software system}, {software package}, {package}] [ant: {computer hardware}, {hardware}] From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (18 May 2012) [foldoc]: software computer program program ... Software includes both {source code} written by humans and executable {machine code} produced by {assemblers} or {compilers}. It does not usually include the data processed by programs unless this is in a format such as {multimedia} which depends on the use of computers for its presentation. This distinction becomes unclear in cases such as {spread sheets} which can contain both instructions (formulae and {macros}) and data. There are also various intermediate compiled or {semi-compiled}, forms of software such as {library} files and {byte-code}. Some claim that {documentation} (both paper and electronic) is also software. Others go further and define software to be programs plus documentation though this does not correspond with common usage.

...

Fonts are definitely not a software program, although some software and document files such as PDFs may optionally include them.

That depends on the format. Some fonts are instructions to a font renderer, and therefore definitely are a software program in a defined font language.

I'm not familiar enough with font renderers, so if true then you make a fair point.