[OpenFontLibrary] [GFD] Tom Phinney on Libre Fonts

[Khaled Hosny]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 01:15:44AM -0700, Vernon Adams wrote:
> Pablo clearly 'gets it' :)
> 
> I assume that the response from people who "dont get it" would be that
> you should have both; 'freedom' and 'quality', and i wouldn't argue
> with that, it's a good target. But...

We should. I find the praising of bad quality fonts very troubling and
denigrating to the free software movement. Free software has always been
about freedom, true, but also it always strived for the for the highest
standards, and we should do the same in libre fonts, not justify doing
lousy jobs because it is more “ground breaking” because that is a false
dichotomy.

I’m a big fan of incremental improvements; “release early, release
often”, and I had released very defective fonts (to my standard) because
I believe in user participation of improving the quality (and people did
participate, though not by actual hacking on the fonts), but that has
always been an interim measure not a goal, and such releases are
usually accompanied with big warnings so that people know what they are
getting into.

Regards,
Khaled