[Openfontlibrary] FOSS and the Commercial Print World

[Jon Phillips]

On Sat, 2007-01-27 at 19:10 -0500, Liam R E Quin wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-27-01 at 12:08 -0800, Raph Levien wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > A large part of the problem is that the vast majority of free fonts
> > are in the "novelty" category. The number of original free fonts
> > suitable for text that have a complete complement in all four variants
> > is _very_ small (another fact which I hope will change significantly).
> 
> It took a long time for Free (libre) computer software to begin to
> catch up with commercial software in terms of being useable by
> people who are not computer experts or programmers.  A large
> part of that was the need to provide infrastructure and vocabulary
> to help people focus on users who were not programmers.
> 
> I think it will take a long time before we see significant numbers
> of free (libre) fonts that are useable and have a wide glyph set.
> 
> There also are not many good business models for Type Artists
> to make a living designing and giving away type right now --
> people don't usually buy lucrative support contracts for fonts,
> for example, although it does happen.
> 
> I say this not as discouragement, but as encouragement -- if we
> don't start, we won't get anywhere.
> 
> No, the logo of the Web site doesn't matter particularly.  Giving
> people a reason to go there does matter.
> 
> Liam

Yeah, good sentiments Liam on this. We have to start somewhere and that
is what this is all about. I think the best thing to do is just to take
things a piece at a time and then all the sudden, we'll be beyond where
we wanted.

With that being said, lets get on this logo contest so we can get a good
logo :) Then, that will get contributors and raise awareness.

Raph, I agree on most of your points. I just want us to keep plowing
practically and support the relevant communities and keep it fun.

Jon

-- 
Jon Phillips

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