<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Khaled Hosny <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:khaledhosny@eglug.org">khaledhosny@eglug.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div></div><div class="h5">On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 03:47:30PM -0400, Dave Crossland wrote:<br>
> On 13 July 2010 15:34, Alexandre Prokoudine<br>
> <<a href="mailto:alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com">alexandre.prokoudine@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> > On 7/13/10, vernon adams wrote:<br>
> >> Theres a debate about on whether Ubuntu are failing the open source<br>
> >> ethos by not releasing the font untill it's 'finished'.<br>
> >><br>
> >> Interestingly there's an argument that fonts can't practically be<br>
> >> released whilst in development (unlike other software) because it would<br>
> >> be difficult for the author & users to track changes etc.<br>
> >><br>
> >> discuss... ;)<br>
> ><br>
> > Whoever insists that Ubuntu is failing some sort of ethos regarding<br>
> > fonts should grow up.<br>
><br>
> Fonts can be released whilst in development (just like other software)<br>
> because users can track changes by having the font name follow a<br>
> unique pattern.<br>
><br>
> Which is to say:<br>
><br>
> What is so hard about releasing FontName20100713?<br>
<br>
</div></div>People tend to pass fonts around and never update them again, so you end<br>
up with many people using broken fonts. Knuth had to shout like this<br>
<a href="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/cm.html" target="_self">http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cm.html</a> to get people to<br>
update their copies of CM.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
Regards,<br>
Khaled<br>
<br>
--<br>
Khaled Hosny<br>
Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team<br>
Free font developer<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br clear="all">
<br>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.<br><br>Nate<br>-- <br>nathan.p.willis<br>
<a href="mailto:nwillis@glyphography.com">nwillis@glyphography.com</a><br>aim/ym/gtalk:n8willis<br><a href="http://identi.ca/n8">identi.ca/n8</a><br>