Lao / Thai / Khmer Bundled Fonts

[Robert M Campbell]

I was just curious, when does LibreOffice choose to bundle fonts? When
is there a good reason to bundle them?

I ask this because LibreOffice has a Burmese font, but no Thai, Lao, or
Khmer fonts that I can tell. Droid Sans includes Thai support. Khmer OS
provides Khmer support.

And SIL's Mittaphab and Lao Government's Phetsarath OT are possible
options for Lao, but the most widely used Lao font in Laos is Saysettha
Lao. The government wants everyone to use Phetsarath OT (which is their
standard). Windows 8 ships with Dok Champa, which I know little about...
And SIL is working on a graphite font Mittaphap. I know Mittaphap is
OFL, Phetsarath OT has no license (public domain?), so those are fair
open options. Saysettha is not open source, nor is Dok Champa, to my
understanding.

But the real question is whether or not LibreOffice will want to include
fonts for language coverage in the first place?

Possible benefits I see:

  * Consistent look and feel for users of those languages across
    platforms and systems
  * Provides native access for people without reliable Internet
    (sometimes a problem in Laos)

Possible problems I see:

  * Makes LibreOffice bigger
  * Could get out of hand if everyone wants to submit their favorite font
  * People might complain because it doesn't have their favorite
    Saysettha font

What do you all think?

-- 
Respectfully,

*Robert M Campbell*
IT Specialist for ADRA Laos & Open Source Advocate
Lao Cell: +856 207 616 7299
US Phone: +1 270 681 0399
robert.rcampbell at gmail.com
rcampbell at adralaos.org

Visit ADRA Lao's Facebook Page at facebook.com/ADRALaos
<www.facebook.com/ADRALaos>
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