<html><head><style type="text/css"></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ---- From: "openfontlibrary-request@lists.freedesktop.org" <openfontlibrary-request@lists.freedesktop.org> To: openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 9:54:01 AM Subject: Openfontlibrary Digest, Vol 23, Issue 6 Send Openfontlibrary mailing list submissions to     <a ymailto="mailto:openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit     <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/openfontlibrary" target="_blank">http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/openfontlibrary</a> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to     <a ymailto="mailto:openfontlibrary-request@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:openfontlibrary-request@lists.freedesktop.org">openfontlibrary-request@lists.freedesktop.org</a> You can reach the person managing the list at     <a ymailto="mailto:openfontlibrary-owner@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:openfontlibrary-owner@lists.freedesktop.org">openfontlibrary-owner@lists.freedesktop.org</a> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Openfontlibrary digest..." Today's Topics:   1. Re: droid fonts (Christopher Fynn)   2. Re: droid fonts (Dave Crossland)   3. Re: fw: [Tipografia] [Gentium] Update #5 -    Gentium Basic and       Gentium Book Basic available for testing (Dave Crossland)   4. Re: droid fonts (Christopher Fynn)   5. Re: droid fonts (Jon Phillips)   6. Re: droid fonts (Simos Xenitellis)   7. Re: droid fonts (Dave Crossland)   8. Re: droid fonts (Dave Crossland)   9. Re: droid fonts (Christopher Fynn)   10. Re: droid fonts (Dave Crossland) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:07:13 +0600 From: Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID: <<a ymailto="mailto:473C7CC1.60402@gmx.net" href="mailto:473C7CC1.60402@gmx.net">473C7CC1.60402@gmx.net</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Dave Crossland wrote: ... > I read 'system fonts for the Android platform ... that will be made > available under the Apache open source license'  :-) In this case I'd wait till you read the actual licence in the fonts. Ascender is not particularly in the Free and OpenSource fonts camp... see:  <a href="http://www.ascendercorp.com/webfontstudy.html" target="_blank">http://www.ascendercorp.com/webfontstudy.html</a> They are also the marketing agents for Microsoft? fonts. - Chris ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:09:57 +0000 From: "Dave Crossland" <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: "Christopher Fynn" <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID:     <<a ymailto="mailto:2285a9d20711150909r12cb94b4pe8a436fbfbe19064@mail.gmail.com" href="mailto:2285a9d20711150909r12cb94b4pe8a436fbfbe19064@mail.gmail.com">2285a9d20711150909r12cb94b4pe8a436fbfbe19064@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 15/11/2007, Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> wrote: > > In this case I'd wait till you read the actual licence in the fonts. Yes; lots of chatter about how much freedom Google is giving with these phones, since what is available now is totally proprietary. But I hope they will release it under Apache 2. (GPLv3 compatible :-) > Ascender is not particularly in the Free and OpenSource fonts camp... > They are also the marketing agents for Microsoft(R) fonts. Yes, this is true, but they did Red Hat's Liberation fonts too, so they are more in the sofware-freedom camp then any other proprietary foundry, afaik -- Regards, Dave ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:36:56 +0000 From: "Dave Crossland" <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] fw: [Tipografia] [Gentium] Update #5 -     Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic available for testing To: "Gustavo Ferreira" <<a ymailto="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br" href="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br">grilo@centroin.com.br</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID:     <<a ymailto="mailto:2285a9d20711150836y4e61bde0mb5205014661b23a@mail.gmail.com" href="mailto:2285a9d20711150836y4e61bde0mb5205014661b23a@mail.gmail.com">2285a9d20711150836y4e61bde0mb5205014661b23a@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 15/11/2007, Gustavo Ferreira <<a ymailto="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br" href="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br">grilo@centroin.com.br</a>> wrote: > > ps: i wonder why this has not been annouced here? Well, you just announced it :-) This is good news - I didn't think this would be out until next year :-) -- Regards, Dave ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:59:29 +0600 From: Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID: <<a ymailto="mailto:473C8901.90006@gmx.net" href="mailto:473C8901.90006@gmx.net">473C8901.90006@gmx.net</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Dave Crossland wrote: > On 15/11/2007, Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> wrote: >> In this case I'd wait till you read the actual licence in the fonts. > > Yes; lots of chatter about how much freedom Google is giving with > these phones, since what is available now is totally proprietary. But > I hope they will release it under Apache 2. (GPLv3 compatible :-) > >> Ascender is not particularly in the Free and OpenSource fonts camp... >> They are also the marketing agents for Microsoft(R) fonts. > > Yes, this is true, but they did Red Hat's Liberation fonts too, so > they are more in the sofware-freedom camp then any other proprietary > foundry, afaik Hi Dave I suspect Red Hat paid Bill Davis / Ascender for the Liberation fonts - and Google has probably paid them for the Droid fonts too. If Google commissioned the Droid fonts then the choice of license will of course be theirs and, if the licence for those fonts is open, the credit for that should probably go to them not to Ascender. Ascender's "web fonts survey" used an incredibly biased set of "tests" << 1. "TrueType hinting tables ? 8.9% failed (404 TrueType fonts had improper/incomplete tables*)" "This test checks for the presence of ?fpgm?, ?prep?, and ?cvt? tables. If all three tables are present the font passes, if any or all are missing the font fails this test. The consequence of a failure is that the font will be flagged as having errors in FontBook under Mac OS X 10.4.">> - I suspect most of the font tested were created long before FontBook on Mac OS X 10.4 came out. To pass this even unhinted fonts need these tables even if they contain no useful data. Anyway I understand this has been fixed in Mac OSX 10.5 - The statement "Fonts that have hinting information will have better screen quality in Windows than a font with no hinting information." is imho not always true - With TrueType fonts bad hinting instructions or poor quality "auto hinting" may be worse than no hinting at all. I've noticed the on-the-fly auto hinting in FreeType often renders even many commercial fonts better than when the hinting instructions in the font are applied. <<"Code Page 1252 character set ? 80.8% failed (3696 fonts missing one or more characters)">> <<"Mac Roman character set ? 95.9% failed (4385 fonts missing one or more characters)>> - Without looking at the details of which particular characters are missing these figures are not very significant. - If the missing characters are not used or very rarely used on web pages how significant is their absence?. I'm thinking about things like mu (B5) cedilla (B8) in the "Windows ANSI" 1253 code page, "approxequal" (C5) and Delta (C6) in "Mac Roman". - For English language only web sites in most cases you could drop many other non ASCII characters in these code pages. (This is just what sub-setting in embedded fonts does.) - All Adobe's fonts which used the "Adobe character set" would also fail this test. - Thinking beyond these two code pages there are of course examples of high quality free fonts like Gentium which has far better character coverage than almost any commercial font. Also how many of the tested free fonts were symbol fonts or similar? <<"Trademark string ? 1.7% failed (78 fonts missing a trademark string">> - If the font name or foundry name is not a registered trademark why should the Trademark string field contain any data? << "Embedding restriction ? 30.3% failed (1386 fonts set to ?Restricted? or improper fsType)">> - My guess  an equally large percentage of commercial fonts would be set to "Restricted" or have some limitations on embedding Anyway the Ascender survey at least makes the point that we should strive for *quality* in free and open source fonts. Perhaps the OpenFont library could perform a very useful service to users by setting some kind of real standard indicating the quality of fonts and pointing out technical faults. Maybe some kind of "seal of approval" for truly high quality free fonts conducted by design professionals? Objective comparisons between particular free fonts and similar fonts from commercial foundry might also be useful. This would perhaps give free fonts more credibility and be an answer to the kind of "survey" Ascender made. The current "ratings" and "reviews" in the OpenFont library are nice but imo pretty subjective. - Chris ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:35:14 -0800 From: Jon Phillips <<a ymailto="mailto:jon@rejon.org" href="mailto:jon@rejon.org">jon@rejon.org</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: Dave Crossland <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID: <1195155314.5810.94.camel@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 16:31 +0000, Dave Crossland wrote: > On 15/11/2007, Gustavo Ferreira <<a ymailto="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br" href="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br">grilo@centroin.com.br</a>> wrote: > > > > it seems like the plattform is going to be free software ? but not > > the fonts? > > The 5 page PDF type specimen PDF - > <a href="http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Droid_fonts.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Droid_fonts.pdf</a> - from the Ascender > website has the following introductory text: > > "The Droid Typeface Family was designed in the Fall of 2006 by > Ascender's Steve Matteson. The goal was to provide optimal quality and > comfort on a mobile handset when rendered in application menus, web > browsers and for other screen text. Ascender Corporation worked > closely with the Open Handset Alliance to develop these system fonts > for the Android platform ? a complete mobile phone software stack that > will be made available under the Apache open source license." > > I read 'system fonts for the Android platform ... that will be made > available under the Apache open source license' :-) Dave, why don't you go ahead and directly contact them and find out the license they want to apply to these...I think ask first and then persuade to do OFL later :) Jon -- Jon Phillips San Francisco, CA USA PH 510.499.0894 <a ymailto="mailto:jon@rejon.org" href="mailto:jon@rejon.org">jon@rejon.org</a> <a href="http://www.rejon.org" target="_blank">http://www.rejon.org</a> MSN, AIM, Yahoo Chat: kidproto Jabber Chat: <a ymailto="mailto:rejon@gristle.org" href="mailto:rejon@gristle.org">rejon@gristle.org</a> IRC: <a ymailto="mailto:rejon@irc.freenode.net" href="mailto:rejon@irc.freenode.net">rejon@irc.freenode.net</a> Please note: the contents of this email are not intended to be legal advice nor should they be relied upon as or represented to be legal advice. Jon Phillips does not represent any organization through this email address. ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:44:10 +0000 From: Simos Xenitellis <<a ymailto="mailto:simos.lists@googlemail.com" href="mailto:simos.lists@googlemail.com">simos.lists@googlemail.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: Jon Phillips <<a ymailto="mailto:jon@rejon.org" href="mailto:jon@rejon.org">jon@rejon.org</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID: <1195155850.9503.5.camel@user-computer> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 ???? 15-11-2007, ????? ???, ??? ??? 11:35 -0800, ?/? Jon Phillips ??????: > On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 16:31 +0000, Dave Crossland wrote: > > On 15/11/2007, Gustavo Ferreira <<a ymailto="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br" href="mailto:grilo@centroin.com.br">grilo@centroin.com.br</a>> wrote: > > > > > > it seems like the plattform is going to be free software ? but not > > > the fonts? > > > > The 5 page PDF type specimen PDF - > > <a href="http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Droid_fonts.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Droid_fonts.pdf</a> - from the Ascender > > website has the following introductory text: > > > > "The Droid Typeface Family was designed in the Fall of 2006 by > > Ascender's Steve Matteson. The goal was to provide optimal quality and > > comfort on a mobile handset when rendered in application menus, web > > browsers and for other screen text. Ascender Corporation worked > > closely with the Open Handset Alliance to develop these system fonts > > for the Android platform ? a complete mobile phone software stack that > > will be made available under the Apache open source license." > > > > I read 'system fonts for the Android platform ... that will be made > > available under the Apache open source license' :-) > > Dave, why don't you go ahead and directly contact them and find out the > license they want to apply to these...I think ask first and then > persuade to do OFL later :) Apparently the fonts can be extracted from the binary image found in the SDK, <a href="http://damieng.com/blog/2007/11/14/droid-font-family-courtesy-of-google-ascender" target="_blank">http://damieng.com/blog/2007/11/14/droid-font-family-courtesy-of-google-ascender</a> Simos ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:19:09 +0000 From: "Dave Crossland" <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: "Christopher Fynn" <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID:     <<a ymailto="mailto:2285a9d20711151719p3ebd4766g853ef341375b6a63@mail.gmail.com" href="mailto:2285a9d20711151719p3ebd4766g853ef341375b6a63@mail.gmail.com">2285a9d20711151719p3ebd4766g853ef341375b6a63@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 15/11/2007, Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> wrote: > Dave Crossland wrote: > > On 15/11/2007, Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> wrote: > >> In this case I'd wait till you read the actual licence in the fonts. > > > > Yes; lots of chatter about how much freedom Google is giving with > > these phones, since what is available now is totally proprietary. But > > I hope they will release it under Apache 2. (GPLv3 compatible :-) > > > >> Ascender is not particularly in the Free and OpenSource fonts camp... > >> They are also the marketing agents for Microsoft(R) fonts. > > > > Yes, this is true, but they did Red Hat's Liberation fonts too, so > > they are more in the sofware-freedom camp then any other proprietary > > foundry, afaik > > I suspect Red Hat paid Bill Davis / Ascender for the Liberation fonts - and > Google has probably paid them for the Droid fonts too. If Google commissioned > the Droid fonts then the choice of license will of course be theirs and, if the > licence for those fonts is open, the credit for that should probably go to them > not to Ascender. Yes, that's a fair point. > Ascender's "web fonts survey" used an incredibly biased set of "tests" This is a great piece of commentary - please add it as a new page on the Open Font LiBrary wiki :-) > Anyway the Ascender survey at least makes the point that we should strive for > *quality* in free and open source fonts. Yes, I totally agree > Perhaps the OpenFont library could Please add this to the Roadmap page of the OFLB wiki :-) Btw, are you a developer? :-) -- Regards, Dave ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:19:47 +0000 From: "Dave Crossland" <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: "Jon Phillips" <<a ymailto="mailto:jon@rejon.org" href="mailto:jon@rejon.org">jon@rejon.org</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID:     <<a ymailto="mailto:2285a9d20711151719n25e2f58g4fb4374d770c3bf0@mail.gmail.com" href="mailto:2285a9d20711151719n25e2f58g4fb4374d770c3bf0@mail.gmail.com">2285a9d20711151719n25e2f58g4fb4374d770c3bf0@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 15/11/2007, Jon Phillips <<a ymailto="mailto:jon@rejon.org" href="mailto:jon@rejon.org">jon@rejon.org</a>> wrote: > > > > I read 'system fonts for the Android platform ... that will be made > > available under the Apache open source license' :-) > > Dave, why don't you go ahead and directly contact them and find out the > license they want to apply to these...I think ask first and then > persuade to do OFL later :) Good idea, I sent them this using the contact form: "Hi, Please confirm the free software license that the recently announced Droid fonts will be released under, when the Android software is released as free software under the Apache 2.0 license. Many thanks, Dave" -- Regards, Dave ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:30:28 +0600 From: Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: Dave Crossland <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>>,     <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID: <<a ymailto="mailto:473D4714.9020802@gmx.net" href="mailto:473D4714.9020802@gmx.net">473D4714.9020802@gmx.net</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Dave Crossland wrote: > Btw, are you a developer? :-) > Yes (amongst other things). In that regard I'm primarily involved in writing software and making fonts for Tibetan and Dzongkha. Fonts I'm working on include Tibetan Machine Uni see: <<a href="http://www.thdl.org/tools/toolbox/index.php#wiki=/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20machine%20uni.html" target="_blank">http://www.thdl.org/tools/toolbox/index.php#wiki=/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20machine%20uni.html</a>>   and Jomolhari see: <<a href="https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/free-tibetan/" target="_blank">https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/free-tibetan/</a>> As significant updates of both these fonts will soon be ready I'll wait till then to upload them to the Open Font Library. (Unfortunately I don't have the time to attempt creating proper hinting instructions for either of these fonts - if anyone with experience in this would like to take this on please get in touch) - Chris Thimphu, Bhutan ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:53:58 +0000 From: "Dave Crossland" <<a ymailto="mailto:dave@lab6.com" href="mailto:dave@lab6.com">dave@lab6.com</a>> Subject: Re: [Openfontlibrary] droid fonts To: "Christopher Fynn" <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> Cc: <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> Message-ID:     <<a ymailto="mailto:2285a9d20711152353o3994ecf7n2e44370938f7a3c8@mail.gmail.com" href="mailto:2285a9d20711152353o3994ecf7n2e44370938f7a3c8@mail.gmail.com">2285a9d20711152353o3994ecf7n2e44370938f7a3c8@mail.gmail.com</a>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 16/11/2007, Christopher Fynn <<a ymailto="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net" href="mailto:cfynn@gmx.net">cfynn@gmx.net</a>> wrote: > Dave Crossland wrote: > > > Btw, are you a developer? :-) > > Yes (amongst other things) That's great news, because we need more developers in this community :-) > In that regard I'm primarily involved in writing > software and making fonts for Tibetan and Dzongkha. Wow, that's awesome! :-) > As significant updates of both these fonts will soon be ready I'll wait till > then to upload them to the Open Font Library. Amazing :-) What kind of free software license are you considering? -- Regards, Dave ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Openfontlibrary mailing list <a ymailto="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org" href="mailto:Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org">Openfontlibrary@lists.freedesktop.org</a> <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/openfontlibrary" target="_blank">http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/openfontlibrary</a> End of Openfontlibrary Digest, Vol 23, Issue 6 ********************************************** </div> </div></div> <hr size=1>Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51443/*http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs"> Make Yahoo! your homepage.</a> </body></html>