Ricardo, What kind of parties do you go to? ;-) Regards, Dave <blockquote>On 29 May 2009, 6:10 AM, "ricardo lafuente" <<a href="mailto:bollecs@sollec.org">bollecs@sollec.org</a>> wrote: Liam R E Quin wrote: > > Yes. Instead of giving you digital files with limited usage controlled > by... totally true and a great point, and as kottke points out in a quick report (<a href="http://www.kottke.org/09/05/typekit-real-fonts-for-the-web" target="_blank">http://www.kottke.org/09/05/typekit-real-fonts-for-the-web</a>), that's pretty darn close to the Youtube model. some relevant differences regarding online type, though: * support for embedding the fonts is already mostly there, whereas support for embedded video in HTML took quite some time after Youtube et al did it with Flash * libre video hosting facilities, likewise, took some time to appear; with OFL, there's already some headway (OFL is there, Typekit is vaporware so far) * fonts are much less an active element of an online experience -- i'll happily watch 10 videos on Youtube, forward them to my friends and forget about them the next day; online fonts aren't really the kind of subject you'd bring up at a party, or share with anyone other than a type designer or web developer. * which reminds me -- with Typekit, you're not supposed to share, just watch a font being used in a page. So the OFL model has still a major selling point compared to TypeKit -- no dependency on 'upstream', ability to download and edit, FLOSS approach to filling out gaps (e.g. i doubt they'll support non-latin alphabets out from the start), and no financial compromise of any sort. > But the good side is that they're helping (perhaps) to fuel demand. > totally -- i usually try to convince people to switch to a free tool by mentioning 'it's does the stuff InIllusShop does, but it's free, open, transparent, scriptable, community-driven [...]'. Maybe having a proprietary tool to compare with might be a good thing for doing PR (much as the EOT page on the OFL wiki helps make a point regarding open fonts). ricardo </blockquote>