Why just with Fontforge?

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www.typeoff.de

Well... Let me try to explain this by numbers.

1.
One of the main directives of this project is to ALWAYS keep it on an Open [Source] Basis so we don't depend on third party, commercial solutions.

2.
I really believe on the future of Open Source Software.

Bear with me for a moment - I work as a Design Tecnhician in a Fine-Arts Faculty in Portugal. As you might know, our public education system doesn't have that much money. The one's who do are usefull courses/faculties like engineering... So this situation leaves us with obsolete growing, underdeveloped, non-market responsive solutions. All this because people who are running the system are spending money in vaious stupid ways. If you are familiar with Manuel Castells'opinionsYou might agree that one way to promote a better future is through the use of Open Source solutions. In a very practical way, save some money to invest on more important things - enter Linux & Open Source Software, hence the use of Fontforge.

Take the case of our neighbours, the spanish region of Estremadura. The public education system developed their own personalized, scaled to needs Linux Distro - Linex - that they implemented on the whole school system. It worked and the savings were huge!

Brasil and some regions in Africa and India are also taking on similar initiatives...

I know these are difficult to implement solutions, and calculating the costs aren't this simple. But this takes to me next point.

3.
Imlementing this cost saving solutions means taking on a higher maitenance cost and further system administration - hey! I work on an University... aren't Universities supposed to promote knowlegde? How about using these systems, develop them, teach students howto, and then comming full circle when students start to use them in their professional lives and saving money to companies etc...

Nevertheless students should be also trained on the tools that the market needs - so teaching commercial tools and practices is also necessary. So the perfect solution would be to train students how to do it independently of the tools.

So as a member of a Faculty I feel it's my obligation to start using this systems, and start promoting them (along with commercial and established solutions). The LiveType Project is exactly this - I want to show people that is possible to use the free, open source solutions to learn how to do it with professional quality. And talking about learning...

4.
The fact that they learn how to "do it" on a Linux platform, or on a Mac platform or on a Win platform doesn't affect "what" they learn. This is really it. I don't consider myself a type designer... I'm just an amateur typographer and type designer whanabe, so I also want to learn how to type design better, who knows if I grow to be good at it? I also want to learn no matter the platform. I also want to learn and knowlege should be acquired in a Free, Open Source Collaborative way! Things work out better if we collaborate with each other.

5.
Finally... I'm open to suggestions... Don't feel like learning how to use Fontforge? (even though it runs on Mac, Win & Linux machines)
Then use the binary files, modify them, play with them.

Use different software, and maybe even openning different areas on the site to different tools/software?
Who knows? Suggest something, Get involved!

(this is the first time I try to write down these ideas... so it might read a bit strange. I'll be more assertive next time! Oh... and thanks, writing this down is really helping me to organse my thoughts about this!)

Cheers!

FontLab offers significant educational discounts, because obviously educational institutions are worth supporting.

FontLab is also developed in Russia. FontLab, Ltd. is a small, international company. It is not a big greedy corporation. I have no problem supporting it with what little money I manage to earn as a student.

With FontLab, one can use RoboFab and Python scripts. While FontLab is not OpenSource, both of these are. And they are the cutting edge of font-making technology. I think that students would really get a service if they were exposed to those…

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www.typeoff.de

I'm going to close this thread. All other comments should be put here: http://typophile.com/node/13565