Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 8:35 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

Thank you for writing plainly the message sent by the two most recent Mofo initiatives: we don't care if our free web does not extend to minority groups, they can go support themselves alone, we care about yourtube western users.

(of course I know that was not what was intended, that's just how it reads, and you've just confirmed it)

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 9:25 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

And why shouldn't people start supporting themselves? And get involved and scratch their itch, provide for themselves? What is wrong with asking that of people?

Note: I'm not involved in any initiative at all -- but I do know that it's pretty easy to make fonts for minority scripts because I've created about a dozen or so myself, about twenty years ago, with primitive tools like Corel Draw.

Nowadays there are excellent free tools available so there is no excuse. If you've got a computer, you can create the fonts you need. It's your language, your script, so why not get active and support it? Why depend on others?

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 11:24 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

It is not that simple to create fonts. Modern "smart" vector fonts are complex beasts, font creation is under-documented, and many minority scripts are way more complex than basic latin to support (see indic and cjk scripts). You do not have a tenth of the infrastructure or tools that exists to help someone with no formation to start churning out code. Go search the internet for relevant specs and figure out how to use fontforge yourself is not really a winning proposition.

Also, even if it was dead-easy (it is not today), people are just not aware they could do it. They know they can localize the UI because they see it localized in other languages. They'll quickly find lots of pointers to tools to help them do so. But since Mofo never made any effort to promote FLOSS fonts (and even focused on getting it out of the picture altogether with stuff like @font-face), many minority users are not even going to be aware it is possible, and assume it's some sort of black magic only Microsoft, Apple, or proprietary foundries can achieve.

Lastly, this is a chicken-and-egg problem. When you have no font for a script you have few users for this script. When you have few users you have few contributors. And if you wait till it's perfectly supported by proprietary platforms, well, few people are interested with working with you at this point. Your stuff is the uninteresting stuff which does not properly support the locale, it is very strange someone adopted it in other countries.

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 13:11 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Waiting for someone else to do it for you isn't a winning proposition
either. And I know there are many complex scripts: I have learned to read
and write about half a dozen myself. Since I'm no longer active as a Sino-
involved myself and I've got other projects to spend my time on these
days.

But I think it's wrong to assume that the those who have a need cannot be
expected to get involved and do the work, while it's of course perfectly
reasonable to demand that others create fonts and infrastructure for
scripts they don't know or need. (Not that western youtube watchers who
love fonts and understand scripts should be barred from working on these
issues, of course. But to make it their responsibility?)

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 13:30 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

boudewijn, Firefox is an international project. I don't think it's wrong to expect it to shoulder part of the effort to properly support the web in all languages via free components. Last I've seen it didn't claim to support western users only.

Also I do not think it is wrong to expect western people to help groups in other areas, given western people often have a lot more material means at their disposal, and inherited the software work done on western languages by previous generations (so they usually can't claim they did the work for their language, so others should too).

Which does not mean local people should not get involved and contribute, but washing your hands on them is not right.

PS. You seem to assume I'm asking for myself. I don't. I have the chance of being born in a western country, and not in a minority group. And that never stopped me from giving a hand to people who were not that lucky.

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 13:53 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

"You seem to assume I'm asking for myself. I don't. "

Er, I'm not sure where you get that from.

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 8:36 UTC (Tue) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]

> Fonts are not content they are a technical component used to render info
> just like codecs.

OK, there are two kinds of Web font usage:
1) fonts that render characters you probably already have fonts for on your system, but with the particular "look" the Web author wants
2) fonts that render characters you probably don't have fonts for on your system

The current interest in Web fonts, both from font vendors and authors, is overwhelmingly about case #1. That is what I mean by "content".

I think you're focused on case #2. I agree that's an important case, and that it's a bit like video codecs, but this has nothing to do with WOFF.

You seem to be arguing that Mozilla is obligated to invest in the creation of free fonts to cover all Unicode characters for which free fonts don't already exist. I don't see why we're *obligated*. It might be a good thing to do, but flaming us for not doing it isn't the best way to present your request.

Given there are organizations already working on free font creation, if they sent a grant proposal our way we'd probably look at it...

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 8:57 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

> The current interest in Web fonts, both from font vendors and authors, is
> overwhelmingly about case #1. That is what I mean by "content".

IIRC when the w3c consulted about eot, web fonts and @font-face the response they got from FLOSS users is that they wanted it for i18n (your case 2). And not because it was a good solution, but because no one was investing in FLOSS fonts, so they were not complete, and even when someone was creating a good floss font, users didn't know about it, because browser creators (proprietary and floss alike) studiously ignored them and made no effort to make web site authors of web site users aware of them.

Also the "look" part is oversold by foundries, there are maybe a score of basic font design (ignoring fantasy fonts, but fantasy can be handled by images just fine because no one sane uses for long runs of text), all the rest are variations on them, and most users would be hard pressed to find differences between some of those basic designs. (that's why font classifications are possible BTW, you have thousands of fonts, but most of them are just slight variations few care about)

> Given there are organizations already working on free font creation, if > they sent a grant proposal our way we'd probably look at it...

That's nice to know and the communication would probably have been clearer if it had been stated from the start up.

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 19:27 UTC (Tue) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]

Actually, it turns out that Mozilla *is* financially supporting free font creation. We're a patron of the Open Font Library.
http://openfontlibrary.fontly.org/patrons

So, what exactly is the complaint here, nim-nim?

Web Open Font Format backed by Mozilla, type foundries (ars technica)

Posted Nov 3, 2009 21:25 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

The Open Font Library is a good project, but so far it's been better at collecting hobbyist fonts and convincing their authors to re-license than at creating the kind of wide-unicode fonts needed to support minority groups.

Also Firefox has an huge public footprint (which is being used for woff right now), and some of this influence (in the form of public referals for example) would be worth a lot to many font projects.