[OpenFontLibrary] Ubuntu Font Testing webapp

[Nathan Willis]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny at eglug.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 03:47:30PM -0400, Dave Crossland wrote:
> > On 13 July 2010 15:34, Alexandre Prokoudine
> > <alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 7/13/10, vernon adams wrote:
> > >> Theres a debate about on whether Ubuntu are failing the open source
> > >> ethos by not releasing the font untill it's 'finished'.
> > >>
> > >> Interestingly there's an argument that fonts can't practically be
> > >> released whilst in development (unlike other software) because it
> would
> > >> be difficult for the author & users to track changes etc.
> > >>
> > >> discuss... ;)
> > >
> > > Whoever insists that Ubuntu is failing some sort of ethos regarding
> > > fonts should grow up.
> >
> > Fonts can be released whilst in development (just like other software)
> > because users can track changes by having the font name follow a
> > unique pattern.
> >
> > Which is to say:
> >
> > What is so hard about releasing FontName20100713?
>
> People tend to pass fonts around and never update them again, so you end
> up with many people using broken fonts. Knuth had to shout like this
> http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cm.html<http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/cm.html>to get people to
> update their copies of CM.
>
> Regards,
>  Khaled
>
> --
>  Khaled Hosny
>  Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
>  Free font developer
>

I've been wondering about this question myself.  It seems like providing the
"beta" font through a repository should be fine -- using it entails stepping
through the process of adding a custom Apt/RPM repo, giving more than enough
opportunities to educate the user about the font's still-under-development
status.  Posting a .ttf file to the web, on the other hand, doesn't.

Dave, are you talking about assigning "beta" or a timestamp to the internal
metadata of the font?  Because that seems like it would work, too -- marking
the font as pre-release in every menu where it appears.  But if you really
want to mimic open code, releasing *only* the .sfd would keep 99% of the
users-who-don't-know-what-their-in-for from accidentally
setting-and-forgetting the prerelease version.

I'm not sure if I think there's a parallel to "code resuse" in having access
to FontForge raw input, but I can say I am learning a lot by studying other
people's .sfds.

Nate
-- 
nathan.p.willis
nwillis at glyphography.com
aim/ym/gtalk:n8willis
identi.ca/n8
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