[Clipart] OCAL identified by IBM as resource for Linux migrations

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

"Stephen Silver" <ocalocal at btinternet.com> writes:

> I don't really see how SVG fonts would make things any easier -
> designing good quality outline fonts is hard, and the format you
> save them in makes little difference.

The user interface of Inkscape is a *LOT* better than the UI of any
freely available ttf editor I've ever managed to find.  I am
absolutely certain that the pricey expensive commercial font editing
packages must not have the same sort of crufty interface as the
freeware and shareware ones I've experimented with.  But Fontographer
is not something I can easily justify in my budget, given that font
design in particular or for that matter graphic design in general
isn't really my thing.

> Also, it's difficult to take SVG fonts seriously at present because
> they don't support hinting.  Font hinting was in the SVG 1.2 draft
> some time ago, but it seems to have been dropped now (at least, I
> can't find it).

SVG fonts are not very far along the development pipeline.  Their lack
of support for hinting is actually a small problem IMO compared to the
complete lack of support for them at all in almost every relevant
piece of software (such as the text-layout engines built into
graphical user interfaces and that sort of thing).  As I said, I'm not
holding my breath waiting for them to materialize in the next year
(or, for that matter, in the next five years); I was only hoping for
eventualities.

>> Also, what would the copyright implications be of doing so with
>> non-public-domain fonts?
>
> I think the outlines are covered by the copyright of the font.

I was afraid that might be the case.

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