Much of the open-source software I use was produced by paid professionals working in universities, corporate research labs, government research labs, etc. In most cases the work was funded by the US government (which taxes me) or various corporations. Even Firefox is programmed primarily by programmers paid by Google (and is built on the old Netscape code), which pays the Mozilla foundation millions of dollars for search results from the search tool. The notion that great open source code is being freely given away by a bunch of generous hackers is largely nonsense; without financial backing of entities who have financial or other interests the code would not exist.

And like all those paid programmers I have plenty of bills to pay. Going through design school put me in debt up to my neck. I’m not about to give my work away—especially when a global recession is kicking my ass. If the Open Source dorks can’t live without GNU/BSD/CC licensed fonts they need to convince someone with deep pockets to fund the labor.

Yes, although some of the most valuable open-source software is produced by groups who receive funding from sponsors and investors, I have been an active member of the open-source community since 2003 and have never received money for the work I have contributed.

If you don't feel like contributing you're certainly not a bad person, I totally understand and agree with your arguments and reasons for not desiring to contribute yourself, but I'm looking, hoping to find that one or two who do feel the same way I feel and are willing to make the contribution.

In light if your perspective, who would be willing to go to a group like Google who have traditionally been very supportive of funding open-source technologies, and seeing if they could get money for making or releasing some professional fonts into the open-source community?

I’ll gladly do open-source fonts if someone can turn up a corporate grant. Although any company that ponies up the money would probably want a better designer than me on board ;)

You should check out the Liberation Fonts. The whole family (sans, serif, and monospace) is licensed under the GPL.

more info...
if you want to get involved...

@ khakis_on_fire: I checked on https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liberation-fonts/ and it's not clear which file is the good one to download. Any ideas?

one thing I do love about linux is the package management, once you install fonts, just like all of the software you have, there is one button that updates your machine and gets the latest software from the central repository so your fonts (and 100% of your software) is always up to date.

Brilliant! We need auto-updating fonts for other operating systems too!

But back to the main issue, yes, I'm aware of Libertine, I was just hoping that there might be somebody here who had some fonts they'd be willing to offer the community. I have started an Ubuntu tutorials site and I'm going to be going over installing and using fonts in an upcoming article and I really wish there were some knockout fonts (libertine is nice, but no head-turner) that I could offer them to download.

Hopefully somebody somewhere will see this and release something :-)

cuttlefish, I say try this link.

a little more straightforward.

I agree with James, asking type designers to donate to the cause is the wrong approach. Extract money from governments and corporations and pay the best type designers to create the fonts.

I agree with Si on this one.

ChrisL

Some foundries offer a basic version of a typeface "free", with the idea that this promotes purchases of the upgrade.

But can the basic version be considered "professional quality"?

Yes, Nick, but most of these fonts have licenses that prevent further distribution. So you can download it and use it yourself and in your business(depending on what your business is, to some extent, I guess…), but you aren't free to bundle it with other programs.

Si has exactly the right idea. This is what other OSes do. Or the OS has their own type staff, too.

But can the basic version be considered “professional quality”?

That’s not what the open-source world wants. What they want are fonts with extended character set, released under a license that will allow redistribution and derivative works so that it can be packaged in F/OSS *NIX distributions. How many tens of thousands of dollars would most studios need to recoup the cost of developing a basic four-font family like that?

I think I've said this before, but if you want to see quality typefaces with open licences, then you should be trying to convince governments, corporations, universities, and other such organizations to commission such typefaces, not individual type designers. Virtually all the free (though not necessarily open-licence) Korean fonts that boast professional design were commissioned and paid for by such bodies, including the Ministry of Education.

James, I think you're missing the point a little.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what innovati is trying to do is create/find a true open-source community around typography. So instead of looking for a huge donation from a studio or corporation, it might be more practical/fun/in the spirit of open source to find a group of designers willing to donate a little time and expertise here and there for the sake of the community. Maybe it doesn't result in a four-weight family. Maybe it does.

No matter how many type designers you excite, you won't be getting many more quality fonts like this. Type design is only a group activity to a narrow extent; maybe in terms of adding other writing systems, hinting, OT features, or other production tasks. You need to get serious funding lined up, or keep dreaming.

Libby, an open-source community isn’t going to produce good fonts. Type isn’t like code. If you see that my code is wrong, it’s great to have you send me a patch and maybe even have a short group email discussion about it. There’s a great deal of black-and-white, right-or-wrong in code. The same doesn’t hold true for type, where design decisions are very subjective. Open-source projects are known for turning into flame wars over simple things like indentation styles or code comments; imagine what happens when half the group decides the Akzidenz revival needs to look more like Futura.

Communal efforts with no funding are just going to create what the F/OSS world already has plenty of: malformed, disjointed, unfinished fonts that get used to pad out those 10,000 fonts for $4.95 collections.

Track

> for the sake of the community.

What community are you referring to?

Cheers, Si

So Mr Innovati,

Let us say I create a four font family with a large character set and offer it up to the Open Source Community. What do I get for it?

And is whatever I get for it worth it when some ChuckleHead decides that the serifs are too long or short and makes an adjustment, and another CH plays around with the lowercase a and g. Then the 3rd CH decides that he can package the original font and the two derivative monstrosities into some "collection".

What is in it for me?

I have another thought, why don't you have all of the open source devotes donate a few bucks a head to this project. I would happily do a four font family for a reasonable enterprise license fee, say $10,000 per font. Forty Grand shouldn't be too much to ask from the Hundreds of Thousands of Open Source aficionados out there.

James, I'm afraid that your proposal goes against the deep philosophy of free software: it's my divine right to get something for nothing :)

wow. Based on the interaction I've seen on this site I never would have expected such an averse reaction to the idea.

I understand that this is what people do for a living, but simply because something is released does not mean it is a free-for-all and subject to derivative works. What if the fonts are released in a CC-BY-ND licence, your work would be free to use and distribute, and even use commercially, but they would still be required to give you credit at the author, and they would not be allowed to make derivative works based on your typeface.

As for the big question of what do I get out of it, I think it's pretty clear. I personally have been using linux since 2001. I've used Firefox since it was Mozilla Phoenix, then Mozilla Firebird. All mac users use a proprietary desktop, built on an open-source kernel called Darwin. Safari is based on the open-source webkit engine, which was based on the khtml engine from the open-source desktop KDE.

If you've visited 3 websites in your life, chances are 2 of those depended on open-source technologies to be served to you. If they use Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal or another popular CMS it would also be running open-source software.

If you've ever been to wikipedia you've benefitted from open content, run on open-source sofware, hosted on open-source servers. And some of you have personal entries on that site too.

So, what do you get out of it? I'd say you've already benefited from open-source in so many ways they could never all be listed. Although many other groups of people (programmers, artists, musicians, photographers, 3d modelers, etc) have seen the open-source movement and joined in, helping each other out, it has become very clear to me that type designers are a cold, ungrateful group of people.

It may take a company funding development to get a good typeface designed, but it's shame that it would require that before anybody would consider 'giving'. Because if you're paid, you aren't giving at all. Well, I hope you enjoy your fonts all by yourself then, and I expect none of you will use open-source software again (or visit the linux-hosted Typophile) because it's all just trash anyway.

Are you guys serious with this response? When a schoolboy comes to your door raising funds for a charity do you tell him to get himself a job and donate his own money? I can't believe how cold-hearted this thread is. Khakis-on-Fire is the only one who understood what I was suggesting.

>So, what do you get out of it? I’d say you’ve already benefited from open-source in so many ways they could never all be listed.

It's not a one way street - by buying Apple products and using Google search we are all effectively funding Open Source development projects - we don't owe anyone anything.

The people doing the real work on OSS projects are paid, and paid well by Google, Apple, IBM etc., even in our small world Dave Hyatt (of Webkit font-face fame) is an Apple employee, Dave Turner (Freetype) is a Google employee.

Isn't it reasonable for font developers to be paid too? And in fact they are - the fonts that RedHat (Liberation) and Android (Droid) have put into open source were paid for.

innovati, I don't think you are understanding that the work that goes into digital fonts is primarily design work, not programming.

Those who do programs to aid font design do sometimes share these among other designers. When they are more extensive, they usually want to sell them.

But in any case, I don't know of any design work that follows the open source programming model: I contribute some code, others contribute more, and we end up with a product that benefits all.

With a visual design, my Caslon is not going to help someone use someone else's Bodoni or James's Clearview.

Some designers have done stuff pro-bono, or given away styles either as promotion or just because they want to as pro-bono work.

But model for open source software--which also rests on salaries being paid by Universities or other large and wealthy institutions--just doesn't apply to visual design.

Instead of attacking people who are already sharing a wealth of experience with us for free, why don't you look at other ways of reaching your goal? You want better quality fonts in the open-source world. How can you accomplish that? You could assemble an amateur group of type designers, download FontForge, and try to create something on your own. You could maybe get funding and pay someone to design a font. A lot of ideas have been suggested as perhaps a more appropriate way of reaching your goal. I too would like to see better fonts available. But perhaps the change you'd like to see should first start with you? Have you downloaded FontForge yet? :-)

>assemble an amateur group of type designers, download FontForge, and try to create something on your own.

Hmm, perhaps interesting results will come out of this! But with a bunch of amateurs, the best that you are going to get amateur-quality work. That's right… not a super family with all he bells and whistles needed to bundle with your free OSes or software.

Well even the best started from somewhere... :-)

What if the fonts are released in a CC-BY-ND licence, your work would be free to use and distribute, and even use commercially, but they would still be required to give you credit at the author, and they would not be allowed to make derivative works based on your typeface.

That’s not enough for the F/OSS world. People redistributing software do not want to get bogged down in crediting everyone who contributed something. These licenses got washed out of the free software over a decade ago when BSD distributions were shipping with multi-page lists of code authors. When the XFree86 authors went this way everybody dumped XF86 for X.org. And if users can’t develop derivative works, then what’s the point of releasing the fonts to the F/OSS world anyway?

I personally have been using linux since 2001.

Good for you. But most of the world isn’t interested in Linux even though it offers substantial cost savings. I’ve used damn near every Unix system out there at some point, and I dumped Linux back in 2001 because it isn’t worth the headaches. I haven’t run Linux without regretting it in ages. I certainly don’t think Linux is worth giving fonts away.

All mac users use a proprietary desktop, built on an open-source kernel called Darwin.

The UNIX code under the hood of Macs was developed by people working for AT&T, the University of California, DARPA, IBM, HP, SGI, Sun, NEXT and plenty of other organizations who had financial support coming from cold-war era defense projects. Most of the other programmers in the BSD world are IT professionals who use and tweak the system as part of their day-to-day work.

If you’ve visited 3 websites in your life, chances are 2 of those depended on open-source technologies to be served to you.

Technologies like HTML and HTTPD were not developed by hobbyists giving up a little time; they were developed by government-funded computer scientists.

When a schoolboy comes to your door raising funds for a charity do you tell him to get himself a job and donate his own money?

I can’t think of many charities that come around asking for weeks of work. What you’re asking for is more like someone showing up at my door selling tickets to a gala at $10,000 a plate. And the entertainment is Clay Aiken.

Innovati, your thinking on this issue is very callow. You don’t know enough about type design, software development, or the history of F/OSS software to even understand what you’re asking for.

Just something to note:

Linux was started by Linus Torvalds as a hobby. He was not paid for the code.

Releasing projects Open Source and for free (there is a difference, after all) is a great way to get noticed for future work, though perhaps not in the field of type design. Being on the fringes as an enthusiast doesn't really lend me any knowledge on the subject.

As noted previously, one key difference between Linux and a typeface in an open source perspective is that the latter can benefit from contributions from lots of people, and the former will not work if too many people are working on it.

Cheers,

T

It would be interesting to know the size of the team that works on the Linux Libertine family of fonts (if it's indeed more than one person, which seems likely). Certainly not the best typeface out there, but I believe it to be among the most pleasing of the free fonts I've found around the internet, as well as the most complete.

1. A school kid comes to my door selling, cookies, a chocolate bar, wrapping paper, or pizza. The cost is about $10.
2. A grown-up comes to a website and asks me to perform a years worth of work for free (and let my bills go unpaid for a year while doing it).

See the difference between 1 and 2?

ChrisL

Linux was started by Linus Torvalds as a hobby. He was not paid for the code.

Again, you guys are doing a very poor job of being open-source nerds. Linux was not a hobby, it part of Linus Torvald’s education in computer science at a state school in a socialist nation where higher education is free. Linux grew into his master’s thesis. If type designers could go to school for eight years on someone else’s dime there would probably be a lot of free typefaces out there. But that is not the case.

And the Linux operating system as a whole is hardly the work of hobbyists. Much GNU software that makes the kernel useful was produced by computer scientists and academics who wanted code that they could edit and redistribute. They didn’t give it away because they were great philanthropists, they did it because they were nerds who wanted to tinker with code unfettered.

>When a schoolboy comes to your door raising funds for a charity do you tell him to get himself a job and donate his own money?

No, I ask them if the can hint. If they say no, I'll ask them if they have any experience spacing and kerning type.

Cheers, Si

"Linux was not a hobby, it part of Linus Torvald’s education in computer science at a state school in a socialist nation where higher education is free. Linux grew into his master’s thesis."

Linus Torvald's Usenet posting that basically announces Linux:

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

"And the Linux operating system as a whole is hardly the work of hobbyists. Much GNU software that makes the kernel useful was produced by computer scientists and academics who wanted code that they could edit and redistribute. They didn’t give it away because they were great philanthropists, they did it because they were nerds who wanted to tinker with code unfettered."

As I said earlier, I don't really think that the Open Source/free software paradigm can work with type design. I'm not saying that you should design a font-family for free. In fact, I only stepped in to clarify that many open source projects are started as hobbies that grow into something much more. Too, I never said that Linux was STILL a hobby. It's obviously much more than that now.

Furthermore, what would it matter whether the programmers were doing it be philanthropists or merely "nerds" who wanted to mess around with code? They released it OS/Free all the same. And again, I AGREE that this sort of thing wouldn't really work with type design. However, if type design is something that you love to do, and you find yourself fiddling with a font in your down time, just "tinkering" around with it, why not release it for free if you're already not being paid for it? After all, OS/Free also doesn't mean that a team of people HAS to work on it. A lot of my favorite software comes from a single coder who is nice enough to share their personal projects with the net.

I was almost excited about this. Then I saw the original poster's temper tantrum when people made suggestions about how to achieve his goal, and that turned me off pretty quickly. Granted, I do feel that some of the points that were brought up should have been more diplomatically stated, but flying off the handle and calling everyone in this community "cold-hearted" will not accomplish anything. Cynics are all over the place and the only way to get past them is to look past them and find the people who would be excited about this project.

wow, ok.

How about this. There's plenty of people out there releasing free fonts, a lot of which (I would expect) fall into the category kaujot points out- things people tinker with in their free time and don't expect payment for.

Just as a thought experiment, what if those sorts of things were free (as in freedom) and not just free (as in beer)? Meaning that they were released under the GPL or a liberal creative commons license? I just wonder how that would play out.

call me an idealist.

This is more of a daydream, but...

What would be great is if some people existed out there who just enjoy fine-tuning the spacing and kerning of other people's type designs. And also hinting, naming, generating, and testing the fonts. And expanding the character set, maybe even adding different weights. You know, all the steps required for creating a professional font with all the bells and whistles.

If there is anyone who is willing to do all this repetitive work for free, preferably without any creative input of his or her own, please, please contact me.

You probably know about this:
http://betatype.com/node/36

There already is a small movement towards collaboration growing, with things like iKern and the like. The only problem with truly open-source typefaces is that, to its designer, a typeface is more than a purely functional tool. Trying to move typefaces into the open-source spirit of collaboration is tricky, for the same reason that an artist doesn't expect people to add more brushstrokes to his painting after he finishes it. While there are certainly technical aspects to type design, it is ultimately much more subjective than coding is. Someone earlier raised the issue of how a type designer would feel if someone suddenly decides that shortening the serifs would look better.

I dunno, maybe I'm expressing it too simply, but I think that that's the major roadblock preventing type designers from joining the open-source community.

Again, just because something is open source does not mean that it has to be collaborative. And just because something is open source does not mean that it's free, though the two often overlap.

Given the generally generous spirit of typophilers, I must say that I have been surprised at the backlash against this request. After all, the motto of Typophile is "Typographic Collaboration".

In response to this bitterness, I would like to highlight how this forum has, indirectly, perhaps already contributed to the requested project. Typophile is a forum in which experienced type designers can share their knowledge both among themselves as well as among less experienced designers. Without the Typophile forum we likely would not be seeing, on the one hand, the quantity or quality of free fonts that are being released these days, nor, on the other hand, the number of people would be in a position to contribute to such a project. So while it might be imprudent to try to design a coherent type system using collaborative strategies similar to those used in the open source community, this forum likely has given knowledge to many people who could participate in a more organized, even modestly funded project. And many of these people would not have the knowledge they do without this forum.

As a final note, I do not believe that the massive M type system has been mentioned. Most of the page is in Japanese, but the English portion reads thus:

These fonts are free softwares.
Unlimited permission is granted to use, copy, and distribute it, with or without modification, either commercially and noncommercially.
THESE FONTS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY.

Since I can't read Japanese, I don't know if this project was/is funded or not.

I'm reminded of a maxim I heard once that went something like "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all"

I have had a greater response here than I could ever have hoped for, but unfortunately the response has been overwhelmingly negative. You question my ability to assess the hours of work that go into designing a typeface simply because I threw a question out knowingly against the odds? I don't see the logic in that.

I don't think you have any basis for making statements calling my understanding of open-source development, the differing contribution models or the knowledge of different open-source funding models into question.

I lack the authority on this forum to close a thread, but that cannot change my desire to do so. I think that while you all line up to take your respective shots at a young designer with your witty and élite comments you might be losing sight of the fact that I'm not just some anonymous thug holding you at gunpoint and asking politely for your wallets, but one of you.

I asked for a willing contribution, and if you don't find that in yourself I'm reminded of another saying: "Nothing to see here, move along, move along."

I could spend my time sitting here and replying to each of your individual personal attacks, flawed logic, inconsistent illustrations of the way you perceive the nature of open-source development, and insults - but at the end of the day I would have hoped you'd agree that my time could be spent doing something of greater benefit. I will simply consider the source and allow disappointment.

You have collectively, and completely, shocked me. It's not often you misjudge an entire collective of people, but it appears that in my life thus far I have become too accustomed to the helpful and giving nature of the open-source communities in which I take part.

I offer not just those who have wasted five minutes of their time conjuring a seemingly harsh response to my ludicrous question, but to all members here, my most heartfelt apology for being so incredibly and publicly naïve, and through my suggestion placed a burden on your conscience that merited such hostility to overcome.

I imagine you'll see less of me on here after this, I have greater things to accomplish than to become so consumed by money and propriety that I wither and rot into a bitter state of existence. Personally, the satisfaction for the work I do derives directly from how many people I am able to help through it, not from the money I can acquire if I keep ownership of it. I have now understood my error and will spend my time amongst people closer to who I wish to become.

i think this has gotten way out of hand.

my perception is that you can basically suggested something that most people (including professional, full-time type designers) think is either really hard, or impossible.

but instead of trying to swing them to your cause you have made personal attacks.

you mention the open-source community a lot, acknowledging that most of the stuff out there is funded by various bodies, and that the actual percentage of people who give their time/skils away for free is small. why would it be any different in the type community?

if the funding for open-source software was suddenly taken away, and no one was getting paid to do it as their day job, do you really think there would be so much of it?

really?

most of those coders would have bills to pay and food to eat, so they need to work for it, and so they work for these organisations who pay them to make open-source software.

it's not bad to be honest and say you need money to live. i do. so i work.

remember most of the type designers here do not work for big companies, but are either small business or sole traders, when you are a little guy it's hard to justify giving work/time away.

as a member of typophile for over 3 years i can say the community is not cold and heartless, but they are honest and straight up.

i hope you find what you are after.

Tom, you'll get over it.
This is just one small aspect of type.
Sure, you have been told in no uncertain terms that you don't know what you're talking about, but that happens to everyone here at one time or another if they say something contentious.

I don't think you will find too many type designers subscribing to the feasibility of font altruism as a smart career move -- the Torvalds path, making a name in OS fonts, geting scooped up by David Berlow and eventually ending up with millions in Font Bureau stock options--so I'd like to suggest this alternative course of action to accomplish your goal:

Divvy the job up: set up strict metric and aesthetic parameters, assemble a team of volunteers each willing to do a subset of glyphs, and that way no one person would be too heavily invested emotionally, with too onerous a workload.

I have recently noticed the lack of professional quality fonts available under open licenses here that are of any professional value.

I'd be interested in what you mean here. Do you think

• there should be a free typeface family for each style e.g. of the classic classifications?
• that existing free fonts are not mastered expertly enough to call them professional?
• that existing free fonts are not designed expertly enough to call them professional?
• that there should simply be more choice?

Do you have in mind typefaces designed for setting books? magazines? corporate identities? on-screen use? display faces? all of these? ;)

Jens

"Khakis-on-Fire is the only one who understood what I was suggesting."

Really?

Well, l just send me a specification off-list, I'll help you work it up to a job ticket (so designers can work on it), and we'll go from there!

Cheers!

Don't we need both things?
I mean, Open Source and professional, even costly, products?
After all, this kind of competition may be actually healthy, and good to reflect on our state.

Besides, I have still to figure out how to convince people to buy software licenses, figure out typefaces… It took me more or less 15 years to start to slightly (onoy slightly) sensibilize on why we need education, why we need ethics in work, et all, and it's really hard.
Probably it's a situation you can feel here in Italy, which lacked typographic education and a development in education for decades, but I think the most important thing is still, besides trying to work out an effective plan, to sensibilize people on the effective value of things, and how they get used.

Isn't it weird that a big part of professional type design originates today as custom, for pretty secondary purposes, while print quality often lacks completely in essential things?

Said, this, you should not expect reasonable responses from excited type designers… ;=)

Even Gentium, listed at the head of this topic, wouldn't exist if it weren't for SIL and their need for good typefaces for their international literacy work.

Again, just because something is open source does not mean that it has to be collaborative. And just because something is open source does not mean that it’s free, though the two often overlap.

This.

As I said before, I don't mind doing a set of fonts with free licenses. I do mind your bad attitude when people told you why they weren't interested. Instead of whining and throwing a tantrum you should have looked past those responses to the people who did say they were interested.

I should add that I'm sure I would enjoy working on an open source font project, if somebody were willing to pay me to do so.

If I had lots of free time, I'd even consider doing it for free. This is not a likely position for me to be in, however.

Either way, I'd want to have a pretty clear hierarchy of work and responsibility and run it a lot like a commercial font development project, with a single person's vision driving the project.

Cheers,

T

I think that while you all line up to take your respective shots at a young designer with your witty and élite comments you might be losing sight of the fact that I’m not just some anonymous thug holding you at gunpoint and asking politely for your wallets, but one of you.

Tom, You are really taking the criticism a bit personally, aren't you?

Over the last 5+ years, I have read a lot of threads in which professionals and students bickered about this and that, and unfortunately on occasion some turned to personal attacks to get their points across. I have not seen any of that here until your last post**. Rather, I saw members of a community come together and provide extremely useful information to your effort and shared their perspectives on the topic.

If I had started this thread, I would feel pretty good about getting so many talented people engaged in what is a very important topic in this industry, yet it seems you only want to listen to those who agree with you. Resolutions only come when you have explored the opposing sides of a problem. You could probably benefit highly from listening to their experiences since most of them know what they are talking about because they live it breathe it every day - some for many years.

You don't have to agree with them, but in the spirit of collaboration, you might consider taking a chill pill and treating your future colleagues with respect.

**My apologies for missing the first one. But whatever!

I have not seen any of that here until your last post. Rather, I saw members of a community come together and provide extremely useful information to your effort and shared their perspectives on the topic.

I would disagree with this statement. There were a few moments in this thread where, though not named personally, rather unflattering terms and generalizations were used about a community to which innovati clearly belongs (I too, count myself in that community). I understand completely why he would get defensive and take things like that personally. Any vitriol found here cannot be fully attributed to the him, though. But for the most part, I think everyone's been very respectful.

Just some more food for thought: Jason Rohrer, an open source/free game designer based in up-state New York, makes his living (roughly $10k/year) almost entirely from web donations from fans, plus the occasional commissioned game/article from an online gaming publication (which can't amount to too much). Of course, Rohrer doesn't want bills to pay, etc., so his meager income is by design. But you CAN make money from releasing your spare-time projects open source/free (or even just free) and ask for donations. Will everyone who downloads your font/project/whatever? Of course not, but you can make a decent amount of money all the same, even if you just do something in your spare time.

Though a bit hesitant to do so, I would liken exljbris foundry's release method to this, at least for Museo. 3(?) fonts for free, and you can purchase the other 2(?) to make the family complete. You get a great quality product for absolutely nothing. If you like it (a sidenote: I do!), you "make a donation" to Jos and get the other two weights. It's a bit of a stretch, as you're not really making a donation, but I think the spirit is there.

All that said, I'll just reiterate that I think any open source font project would have to have either a sole author or a very small group of like-minded designers to be "professionally" successful.

Edit: Rohrer's income is actually in the range of $14.5k, as he has a consulting job with Electronic Arts, as well as a patron. I was a little surprised that such people still existed (patrons, that is).

Innovati, your thinking on this issue is very callow. You don’t know enough about type design, software development, or the history of F/OSS software to even understand what you’re asking for. James Puckett

Tom, You are really taking the criticism a bit personally, aren’t you? Zara

it's clear that innovati could have handled things a little better, but really, how do you respond to such a condescending attack such as the one typed in by James?

this was the first personal attack of the thread, from my reading of it. Maybe I missed something.

not a word to James.

I'm not sure that innovati attacked anyone individually.

If I missed a personal attack of his, I stand corrected.

:(

My apologies that I didn't see the comment posted by James. I read through the comments a little quickly and I missed it. My mistake.

Regardless, I still find some of the things Innovati said to be disrespectful to everyone who has participated in this thread, and so I'm calling him out on it.

I'm not here to be a referee so I'm not going to call out every individual comment and get into a who-said-what argument. It is a waste of everyone's time.

Just be nice, and carry on.

"I should add that I’m sure I would enjoy working on an open source font project, if somebody were willing to pay me to do so."

Me too, and if they eventually gather the brains to specify what were they were asking for, maybe it'll be done. But this is the 3rd Typophile thread I'm aware of with the same question, the same ugly confrontation, the same offers, and I'm guessing it too will end in silence with another wild-eyed freetype type wandering off in a tiff wondering why.

It's boring.

Cheers!

no problem Zara, just thought someone needed to say something, nothing personal -- u r awesome. (/me backs out of the thread)

Somebody is using $10K/yr as an example of somebody making a living? Who lives in New York City? What, does he live with his parents, or supported by a partner?

$10K a year won't even pay my *health insurance* alone. Or a place for my family to live in our current city. Let alone be enough to live on.

Cheers,

T

Upper New York state, I think it said, not New York City. But either way...

Very well Zara, I never intended to cause either through the creation of the thread, or either of my 2 following comments to cause disrespect to any particular person or to Typophile itself.

I am young, and I know that. I don't have the benefit of being shielded by tough impermeable hide to protect me from some of the direct ad hominem attacks thrown at me while I was attempting to raise support for the benefit of others, though I did try my best to remain diplomatic and not fall into the trap of replying or arguing against any comment that I may have taken offense to in the interest of trying to keep the thread itself on track, lest it decay into bickering and nothing get accomplished.

I apologize if I have disappointed you through my failure to either engage the forum in a manner in which intelligent discussion could be carried out, or through my greatest efforts to remain impartial toward comments comparing me to throwing a tantrum and questioning my comprehension of the nature of open-source and commercial development models.

This whole thing has really been a learning experience for me, and I hope that long after I have been removed from this thread and forum that maybe some seed of charity will grow in the hearts of those who did read the ideas, and hopefully some will eventually consider releasing some work under a license that allows free redistribution. If that happens because of what has become this ugly thread I will still count it as a win for the greater good although I likely won't be here to see it.

I was no longer checking this thread, and if I hadn't been emailed by another forum member I wouldn't have been back here to post this apology. I feel that there are others here who rightfully owe an apology, but based on how things have unfolded I have serious doubts that other apologies will be made.

I can't quite understand though Zara, and maybe it's because you haven't got the time to go through all of the comments as much as I had, but when a direct ad hominem attack is made against you, how else can you take it but personally? Isn't that inherent in the nature of such attacks?

[…] how else can you take it but personally? Isn’t that inherent in the nature of such attacks?

Tom, I have two perplexities about your attitude:

1) Charity: I have strong doubts about the possibilities of being charitable through the offering of open-source works. Firstly, because people tend to abuse what's gratuitious. I would like to see initiatives to be rewarded by donations, I would like to see more sharing of work, and not all backed up by sponsorization, but as long as we're on this earth, in this human condition, spiritual progress largely depends on everyone's commitment and availability.
If you are unable to sensibilize people about recognizing the gratuitious nature of things (and I have strong doubts you can do that by words, seen how everything is often taken for "granted" and not "given", but this opens up a whole reflection on "creation" and "authority" which people tend to dislike, as they seem to prefer to live in a sort of "automated" way.
Charity comes out of Charity, no other way.

2) Youngness: I think this is a point of strength on your part, not just a "vulnerability". Personally I have never had the chance to attend studies. We simply did not have them around 20 years ago in Italy, that's all. But I see I have "learned" nonetheless, and the first step is not to give so much importance to "personal attacks" or the short-sightedness of many so-called professionals.
I feel I still have everything to learn, but I am no longer saddened or embittered by that, since I have realized you learn in an infinite number of ways, and it may prove a more enriching experience to learn from a small, single thing, than to try to tackle the biggest problems on a wide scale.

Of course, I quite agree about the fact that it would be good to have more open source faces, but I also agree with the idea that we should have more works of personal dedication priced accordingly.

So, if you really wish to understand better, try to explain more in detail what you would propose, and I'm sure you'll get a lot of constructive feedback.

Smashing Magazine had a page devoted to free quality typography. There aren't much free fonts of high quality which are not on this website:

Here is the page

I am posting this not because I think asking for free stuff is horrid ( we can say no ) or that saying no is horrid ( heavens!) but because I think there is some missing context.

If people in the font industry didn't fear that bunch of glib cocksure code adjusting unix folk was going to steal it's lunch with @font (and laugh merrily and in a self satisfied way while doing it) the response would have been different. Should the font industry take a different attitude? Maybe. But I suspect that the unanswered questions raised by @font and Håkon Wium Lie's attitude has made a difference. Nobody likes being dragged by the hair into a new business model which BTW may or may not exist.

As things stand font people ( in general ) don't really think of *nix and open source proselytizers as their pals. Not yet anyway. Maybe that can change. But it will take time patience and thoughtfulness all around. And maybe a grant.

Somebody is using $10K/yr as an example of somebody making a living? Who lives in New York City? What, does he live with his parents, or supported by a partner?

$10K a year won’t even pay my *health insurance* alone. Or a place for my family to live in our current city. Let alone be enough to live on.

I did not say that Jason Rohrer lives in NYC. I said that he lived in upstate New York, in Potsdam, to be specific. His level of poverty is self-imposed, because it's the way he wants to live.

Furthermore, I was not in any way saying that you should aspire to live on $10k/year (Rohrer's budget is actually $14.5k, as I corrected at the bottom of my post). I was pointing out that the majority of that $14.5k is from donations alone, and a person working in their spare time, while holding another job, could solicit such donations and make a decent amount of money ($10k is more than decent, in my opinion) if their work is quality and people appreciate it.

Yes, sorry I missed that bit about it being upstate NY, not NYC (and there is a huge difference in the cost of living, there). But somebody else already corrected that.

Still, your example of Jason was that he is doing this *full time*, and even with a consulting contract and a patron on top of his donations, he is only pulling in $14.5 K a year? Presumably one wouldn't be doing nearly as much work if it was in one's spare time. Plus, Jason is a full-time open source game designer rather than an open source type designer (the former seems more viable to me). I think this example actually hurts rather than supports an argument for the financial viability of donation-based open source type design.

So if it wasn't for the consulting and the patron, he'd be getting, what, maybe half of that? Somebody doing it on the side of a full-time job would be putting in what, 1/3 the hours? So maybe $3K or $4K a year? Sure, that's money, and I'm discouraging anybody from trying it, but it doesn't sound like a living as most folks would think of it.

Cheers,

T

Sounds like a hobby to me.

Well, the SIL's funding of Gentium (and their other OFL-licensed fonts) provides a good start. Red Hat is funding the Liberation fonts (GPL+embedding exception), and somebody is funding Linux Libertine (GPL/OFL). Then you have the Tεχ User Group–funded Latin Modern and Tεχ Gyre fonts (GFL/LᴬTᴇX Public Project License).

Maybe the thing to do is ask which of the type designers here would be willing to work—for pay—with one of these projects, and which project would be willing to pay a professional to do what the programmer couldn't.

—Joel

The list of type designers who have worked on fonts that have either been given away or licensed under some kind of open source model is long... Matthew Carter, Tom Rickner, Jim Lyles, Victor Gaultney, Steve Matteson, Bigelow and Holmes, John Hudson, and many more...

A more interesting question might be which type designers would refuse to work on an OSS font project.

There must be a hundred other things that people in the Open Source Community do not want to pay for. So I’d suggest Tom send similar “calls” to other lists. A few suggestions…

Calling all dentists – Some members of the Open Source Community are in dire need of dental work, please donate time and materials to improve their smiles.

Calling all airlines – High airfares cripple the OSS advocates from attending conferences and other meet-ups around the world. Please establish an OSS boondoggle fund to provide subsidized air travel.

Calling all Pizza Outlets – Programmers are fueled by pizza – but costs can be burdensome. Please consider providing free pizza to all legitimate card carrying Apache developers.

Calling all graphic designers – Our penguin logo makes it hard for people to take us seriously. We need a new icon – maybe a warlock or a sword wielding anime princess – we also need a new name featuring a heavy-metal umlaut.

Still, your example of Jason was that he is doing this *full time*, and even with a consulting contract and a patron on top of his donations, he is only pulling in $14.5 K a year? Presumably one wouldn’t be doing nearly as much work if it was in one’s spare time. Plus, Jason is a full-time open source game designer rather than an open source type designer (the former seems more viable to me). I think this example actually hurts rather than supports an argument for the financial viability of donation-based open source type design.

So if it wasn’t for the consulting and the patron, he’d be getting, what, maybe half of that? Somebody doing it on the side of a full-time job would be putting in what, 1/3 the hours? So maybe $3K or $4K a year? Sure, that’s money, and I’m discouraging anybody from trying it, but it doesn’t sound like a living as most folks would think of it.

According to numbers he provided Esquire magazine, Rohrer's budget before his patron and before his consulting job was the $10k that I provided in my initial comment. And his games are not quite what you think of when you think of a video games. Very retro and low-budget (understatement of the year). And again, I'm not suggesting that anyone try to match his level of desired poverty. But even $3-4k garnered from doing work on the side—work that, in all likelihood, you love to do—is nothing to sneeze at. I wouldn't want a living on $3-4k/year, but I'd love a side bit of income like that.

I have always stated that I'm not sure the same paradigm can apply to type design as it applies to software, etc. But I do think the two can work together.

All the time in the world for bla, bla, bla, but not a specification in sight?

Cheers!

A typical client. Plenty of room for cost over-runs. :-)

(First of all, sorry if this sounds aggressive, it's not my intention)

So I’d suggest Tom send similar “calls” to other lists. A few suggestions…

Do not confuse services and products. Dentist, airline, icon and font design are services, it makes sense to pay for that. Pizzas are physical products, it makes sense to pay at least as much as the flour/tomatoes/etc cost. Making and baking the pizza is a service that adds value to the raw flour and tomatoes.

Using a font on my website or in a PDF is not a product nor a service the font designer provides, thus I don't see why I should pay or have to read legalese and worry about abusive embedding/redistributing/per-cpu limits. Once the font is designed, distribution is basically free. But of course unless the designer has a patron (is that the correct word? «mécène» in french) there is nobody to pay.

This is the same problem as with the music industry —except font designers cannot live from live performances :-) In the end I wish I could have unlimited use and pay a flat fee per year and have that redistributed to the artists according to my listening statistics on last.fm. Maybe I should move to Man.

Starting a thread like this is similar to when someone (I forget names) spoke to the crowd at ATypI suggesting that they release more free fonts. IIRC there was much back stepping to re-explain what was meant to be said. If someone comes into a room asking for something for free where people all make a living from that something and all these people don't share the same ideas about the worth of this something there is going to be a clash of interests. I'm late to the party and feel like it has been played out. Seems to me if some seriously organized specs were layed out it might've lead to a different kind of discussion all around.

All the time in the world for bla, bla, bla, but not a specification in sight?

As the man says, put up or shut up.
If the OS advocates expect work from type folk, the least they could do is make the effort to produce a brief.

The recipient of the 2008 SOTA Award for lifetime achievement is itching to get cracking.
That's like Clint Eastwood offering to make you a free movie and star in it.

Starting a thread like this is similar to when someone (I forget names) spoke to the crowd at ATypI suggesting that they release more free fonts.

Ellen Lupton?

Yes, thank you Karsten.

And I didn't mean to open up another can of worms bringing Ellen Lupton's talk into it. I was just pointing out that when you approach a group of people who make a living from doing something you need to tread lightly.

Let's let this one die. I think everyone has said what they want to say. No hard feelings, ok?

Tom and everyone else who has been offended,

If you feel that your reputation and well-being is threatened by others in this forum, then I suggest you take *that* discussion offline. Using this thread to focus on the negative aspects of this conversation is not productive to you nor anyone else here.

>So I’d suggest Tom send similar “calls” to other lists. A few suggestions…

It was pointed out to me off-list that this could be taken as another Tom-bashing. That was not my intention. Just pointing out that many of the beneficaries of OSS don't contribute.

>The recipient of the 2008 SOTA Award

2007 in Seattle, as I recall.

>I was just pointing out that when you approach a group of people who make a living from doing something you need to tread lightly.

You recall ATypI Finland - Victor made the case for the Open Font License and there was no backlash. I think that was due to his approach, reasoned arguments, and the fact that he did have the respect of his peers.

I don't explicitly remember Victor's talk. But it is good to be reminded of that.

>I don’t explicitly remember Victor’s talk
http://www.atypi.org/30_past_conferences/07_Helsinki/30_program/30_other...

You probably went next door for Adam's talk - either that or to the bar ;-)

...he did have the respect of his peers..

No chucklehead he.

I presume we're talking about Victor Gaultney?
I attended his talk at St Petersburg; it was very inspirational.
However, the beneficiaries he mainly targeted were not software developers and budget-conscious users in general, but minority language speakers.

So once again, the specific questions Jens asked must be answered: what's missing in OS fonts? Do they want the latest stylez, gazillions of OT features, recherché encoding, &c., &c.?

>I attended his talk at St Petersburg

It was a different talk.

Interesting thread. I know it's more complicated than this, but this is how I see it -
I am not a type designer, but I would be glad to be involved in a project like this for other types of designs I do. I realize that we all have to make money. But I would say many designers have enough time to work on some sort of project on the side. I occasionally do free web-sites for non-profits. I can't do it all the time obviously, but it would be foolish, and even selfish to say that I could not offer my services on occasion to help something that does not directly pay me back.
In short, I think there is plenty of room for designers to design something that is open to public use.

"Ellen Lupton?"
Nowwwwwwwww I remember why I fled ATypI.

"That’s like Clint Eastwood offering to make you a free movie and star in it."

Go ahead punk, make my D. ;)

Cheers!

"Go ahead punk, make my D"

I will for a fist full of dollars :-)

ChrisL

Chris is back! Just what this thread needed! How about the spacing of this new Linux font? "Every Which Way But Loose" ;-)

My last post here – honest!

Harhuum.

The primary difference between open source code and open source fonts would be that the code would likely be improved over time, but the fonts would very likely become worse.

The "scratch your own itch" model of software development works very well for large open-source projects exactly because my new feature or fix is something that >I< need in a current project, and therefore >I< will spend the time (or get the funding) to build the new feature or squash that bug.

This really would not be the case in font development.
A professional designer is very unlikely to need, or want, to go into somebody else's font and fix the problems in order to be able to use the font themselves.

i'm actually sympathetic to innovati's thinking, and had at one time talked with Lee Quin about donating some fonts from the Alphabets Library to the {forgot the name of the FOSS Desktop project} he was involved with.

However, the same concerns and issues arose on further consideration, and it never came to pass.
The idea of releasing DESIGN into the public domain is perfectly legitimate. However, that certainly does not mean that DESIGNERS should be obligated, nor brow-beaten, for considering their own livelihoods.

FOSS is NOT in any sense, a charitable institution. It thrives exactly because it provides more value back to those who donate to it than they are required to 'pay'. Unless and until the same model would work for fonts... or photos... or creative writing, or any other pursuit, the model will not thrive in these domains.

Just my 2 cents ;-)

Peter Fraterdeus

http://slowprint.com/almostfreelp (Almost Free Letterpress!)
http://alphabets.com - Galena, Illinois

I should clarify that while I am very skeptical about the prospects for general-public-donor-supported type design, I believe that commissions, and donations of existing typefaces (probably mostly by corporations, but sometimes by independent designers) are the likely modes of growth for good quality open source typefaces. Slow growth, from a small number of quality typefaces today, but grow nonetheless.

Regards,

T

Thomas and David have both indicated that they would be happy to work on fonts for open source release if they were paid. I would be too. In general, the work I do ends up being owned by someone else anyway, and if they decide they wanted to make it free (as in loose), that is their decision not mine. As it happens, the people who most often come along with the cheque book ready and, as David notes, a specification are people who want to control the distribution of the fonts.

Si: A more interesting question might be which type designers would refuse to work on an OSS font project.

I categorically refuse to work on any fonts for the Office of Strategic Services. You just know that they're going to end up as the CIA.

Back in the dim and distant there was an attempt at collaborative typeface design on Typophile, kind of along the lines of the Type Battles, zip files of ai files were posted for anyone to download, work on and re-submit. Somewhere on a backup disc I have some/all of the completed glyphs, I think just most of the lowercase was completed and from memory it certainly wasn't a professional typeface, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it was never completed and just ran out of steam, lack of commitment etc.

I remember finding a link to Typophile for the first time via another collaborative type-design project which involved a bitmappy face that relied on turning squares in a grid either on or off. I seem to remember seeing that again in the past couple of years, still going, still unresolved.

Tim

The only thing that worked was when a bunch of us did a collective font of ornaments for charity--the tsunami. There was no attempt at a family look, it was just everyone donating a glyph. The set was sold to benefit the victims of the tragedy.

ChrisL

I’ve been only now catching up on this thread and the open invitation to type designers on Typophile and was sad to see how poorly received it was. I believe most of the negative responses were due to misinterpretations of the invitation due to ignorance of FOSS, its community and development models. I have seen many similar responses to the concept of pro bono work from professionals who felt themselves and their business models threatened by the flag of FOSS. Ultimately I believe ignorance begets arrogance and fear and thus hold it vital to try to understand new (sometimes very radical) ideas for often they are the proponents that lead to (often positive) change.

It is equally regrettable to hear that Tom may take an absence from the typophile.com community. Although I am not much of an active member, I particularly value the contributions in a holistic sense of those who do in fact understand FOSS for their insight and willingness to look past immediate concerns of payment for their time and efforts.

This said I understand the situation of many professionals who may find they do not have the time or otherwise ability to participate in an open type project—I find I often don’t have the time to read and respond to many of the discussions that occur here, along with the thousands of other things I wish I had time for. I think Tom’s invitation was worded persuasively yet it was an invitation that begged for consideration, and he felt was met with outright rejection.

I believe the misconception that openly licensed fonts are prone to depreciation through inconsistent or ‘amateurish’ edits comes from being compared too directly with other code-based software projects. In my opinion no font is ever perfect, and yes while this will always be an entirely subjective opinion, even Robert Bringhurst states that adjustments of the kerning tables can, and even should be made. Furthermore with Unicode always expanding the task of adding new glyphs and ensuring widespread language support will keep any open font project alive for years to come—see the commit change logs of the more successful open font projects. If the project lead feels a negative edit has been made this can be easily reverted; similarly if the community is not happy with the decisions of a project lead, the project can easily be forked.

The argument that projects with visual aesthetics at their heart are harder to collaborate on than software projects with code at their center I believe has some merit. I think of these potential issues more as a challenge to overcome rather than a reason not to get involved—the possible benefits of collaboration in my opinion are worth the efforts of overcoming subjective opinions on aesthetics. Having participated in the GNOME and Tango Desktop Project and otherwise the FOSS community for over a three years now, I am personally convinced that we have overcome many subjective disagreements over aesthetics and as a result have produced work we are proud of and the community readily uses.

As a final thought, I think a good starting point for a new open font project would be to begin with a faithful historical revival, thus possibly sidestepping some of the issues of aesthetics.

Kind regards.

—Simon Pascal Klein

Simon, take another look at this thread.
I think you'll find that there is some interest expressed in Tom's idea, but it's unlikely that individual type designers will do anything until "the OS community" comes up with a specification of what it wants and how the project will be managed.

@Nick: Tom does not speak on the behalf of ‘the open source community’ (in a holistic sense) nor any specific project (that I aware of). There is no general guideline on starting a new project, though it generally just begins with invitation through dialogue, much like Richard Stallman’s GNU project or Linus’ kernel project posting on mailing lists—in fact that’s how most FOSS projects that I can think of came into being. Many developers perused mailing lists or newsnets, whereas many type designers are found at home here on typophile, hence Tom’s decision to post his idea and invitation here.

We are not going to get a formal proposal from someone because the FOSS community does not operate like a traditional business; there is no brief, quote to write or contract to sign. FOSS projects commonly begin with a general invitation to join a cause to scratch an itch.

So, in an effort to get a ball rolling, here’s what I think a Tom and we could consider aiming for:

• a high-quality font family, whereby the quality is measured in hinting, kerning, character support/language support, number of weights and styles available, etc.;
• stylistically a good place to start as I noted above might be a digital revival, perhaps from the humanist period (it’s one gap that is not yet covered by open fonts and humanist typefaces are reasonably popular);
• to publish the work under an open license, anything from public domain to an open font license (I haven’t looked into this), a Creative Commons license, one of the open artistic licenses (their proper names currently escape me) or even the traditional GPL, or variant thereof (or anything else if none of these are applicable?).

Supportive technologies could include a mailing list, which would probably be a good place to start from if this project attracts a couple of people. Once anything gets going a distributed version control system (e.g. git or bazaar) could be set up to manage contributions and edits and to manage new interest and show off the work, a small site/wiki—as an example, have a look at http://tango.freedesktop.org/.

Just some thoughts?

I'm just catching up to this thread -- it seems like the thread turned the corner. (Is everybody done getting their feelings hurt?)

Now that this group has had the initial reactions and people have expressed themselves will you start a new thread and invite the interested parties to join in a directed effort that has a clear charter? Or will you let the negative initial reaction kill the whole idea? If it's worthwhile and you're committed to it there's no reason to waste energy by getting offended.

If it's worthwhile the people with passion for the idea will help make it happen. Wikipedia started as one guy who invited a small group of people to help him out with a social experiment. He didn't start with a grand vision of replacing printed encyclopedias. Say what you will about Wikipedia's quality, it has changed the landscape.

Typophile will gladly host a project of this nature. There's no compelling reason not to. What Typophile can't do is convince people to join in or donate their energy, time or resources. You've got to muster that and clearly you've got a hurdle to overcome already. Although, all you really need are two or three people to get the initial momentum going...

Earlier someone mentioned the group font effort. What was that, 2003? It was a social design experiment. It didn't start with a charter or a design brief. It fizzled out because there was no clear vision for how it was going to impact people, make lives better, or [insert lofty goal here].

If you have that clear need or vision, then start a new thread and announce your project, say what you need and run with it. And if people don't want to participate I think you'll find that they won't get in your way.

Lastly, you have received some good input from folks here who don't believe the idea will work. Use their reactions as constructive input -- they have industry understanding that would benefit you and it's wasteful for you to get offended by their reactions.

__

Post script. Ideo recently announced an open source UI design effort to envision a new interface for Bug Base. And don't tell me a UI is too subjective or too aesthetically-driven for an open source effort to work. https://client.ideo.com/buglabs/

Simon: FOSS projects commonly begin with a general invitation to join a cause to scratch an itch.

Rather than thinking in terms of the 'itch' being a need for open source fonts, perhaps the itch is the need for a spec for open source fonts, and this is the first thing to which people should be invited to contribute. And the people invited to draft this spec should, primarily, be the people who need and would use the fonts, not the people who might eventually make them.

has anyone mentioned the Open Font Library Wiki project?

Seeing as how I was a prick earlier in this discussion I thought it would be nice to throw the open-source crowd a bone. Last year I started work on a high-contrast version of Fry’s Baskerville for private use. I won’t ever finish it so I’ll throw it into the public domain.

It’s got an alphabet, lining figures, diacritics, ligatures, and some punctuation. I don’t remember whether or not the spacing was any good. It’s not the most desirable font out there, but it might be useful for a team who don’t want to start from zero. Files (VFB, UFO) can be download at: http://jpad.biz/files/large_frys.zip.

And the people invited to draft this spec should, primarily, be the people who need and would use the fonts, not the people who might eventually make them.

Sure, although somebody in a lead position in editing the spec should be somebody who knows more than a little about making fonts, else it won't be nearly as useful as a specification.

Cheers,

T

Interesting how this thread evolved.

I think, there are different valid points, but the thread lost track do to missing the main idea and the "two sides" speaking not with each other, but against each other.

It probably was not diplomatic (and actually also *unreasonalbe* to suggest releasing fonts for free. Who would want to give away months of work?

Also, the arguments saying that fonts don't work like code is true (or not so... see details below), as it's evident that too many cooks will spoil the broth.

I will, how ever feeble it might be, try to play the interpreter (and why I'll won't take this position permanently, I hope to give this thread a new track. (Yeah, tracking).

Now, open code actually does not work like anyone changing anything at will. Or open code would not work either. Also, if you do study the OFL (it's not as long and NOT legalese. Go read it: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=OFL_web) carefully, you will find that it caters for overseen developement.

(a) Open does not mean void of copyright! (b) there is the concept of "Reserved Font Name"

Basically it thus also enables a cooperation style which would not ask for as much as innovati initially did and which also allows for a consistent font style and quality.

The licence allows users to modify the font, however if they redistribute the modified font they must use a different name. Of course they can resubmit their additional or updated glyphs to the original copyright holder, who then can decide to incorporate them right into the font with the reserved name, or can touch them up and include them then, or not to include.

This enables a workflow process that will benefit from micro-contributions and maintaining quality.

A potential use case would be a designer releasing a basic set of ASCII-only character set, e.g. Designers are using them in their work. One needs a non-ASCII character (say, "é"), so creates an é-character for his local copy. Cause he cannot monetize on that single character he has created anyway, he resubmits it to the original author, who might include it in the next official release with little effort.
If our user created a whole big set (e.g. Cyrillic), 'cause he needed it, he can either decide to resubmitt (and he would be attributed), or he can start a "new" font (i.e. distributing it under a new "reserved name" including the latin and cyrillic, attributing the original author.

Anyway, the more interesting scenario is the former one, as it operates with micro-contributions, which consume (relatively) little time each, and effort which comes collaterally: which you (potentially) need to do, but cannot monetize on anyway.

This could be a potential model for Open Fonts. Well, it's exactly how it's supposed to work already, however the movement needs some pro's taking care of the key part assuring quality as the holders of the rights to the "reserved names".

Now, it probably won't work out, 'cause once any one of us is at that level, he has also a couple of years behind him. Which necessarily reaps a man from idealism and which necessarily makes every man into an egoist ("it does need to hurt me, but by not helping them out, I'll be in a 'better' position by not improving theirs"~~~ whatever-like thinking).

No, it's just natural. We're all like thet (no exception here). We all become like that with time, and we have to feed our families after all, don't we?

Go, micro-contributions! [That's how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia sysdevelopers might, but editors are not paid by large corporations [except for those touching up information on world powers' politics and big pages about big companies' products...]].

/Szabolcs

@james - nice place to start!

I’ve just returned home from a week-long conference and will respond in full in the coming day. For now, thank you James Puckett—I’ve had a quick peek at the work so far and it’s looking great. From my knowledge there is no freely licensed Baskerville revival available, so it would be great to complete something like this.

—Pascal

Kaffee und Kuchen

Tiffany, since innovati seems to have dropped his idea, he did not reply when I invited him to try to re-formulate his idea in a viable way (like David Berlow encouraged all to do) and the talk has become entirely uncentered, I think you may close the thread.

EDIT: I do not mean to mortify possibly good ideas, I just mean if an idea emerges, a new thread may be started. What do you say?

I don't have a strong opinion on closing the thread, but if somebody wants to propose a specific project and a structure for that project, they should do so - either in this thread or a new one.

I think that on at least one point aszszelp and I are in rather strong agreement: a high quality open source font project involving multiple contributors would need strong leadership and vision to stay on track and maintain that quality. But I suppose that even if the goal is to release something open source, there's nothing to say that one can't run the main development line in a less "open" (in the sense of accepting all contributions) fashion.

Cheers,

T

Apologies in the delay of my response. I’m happy to see conversation return and new ideas coming forth, and because it deserves mention again, James Puckett’s release of Fry’s Baskerville into the public domain.

I’ve been contacted by two interested persons off-site regarding starting an open font project. This would probably be run on Google Groups and possibly Google code (they provide version control systems which is all we really need), and if anything came from it, could be added to Open Font Library (heck, if someone wanted to put anything up there earlier, they can).

From my understanding a charter or roadmap is being written. I don’t think a full spec. is at all required—I think the three of us understand what we want quite well, and for those interested in joining, a one or two line intro on a page somewhere could explain it. I also don’t think developers and general users of FOSS would be very adept at writing such a specification.

So, for now I believe the project or idea for the project has moved to Google Groups. If you’re interested, please see http://groups.google.com/group/altindietypo/

Regards.

—Pascal

Kaffee und Kuchen

I’ve just been informed of a few reqs. for joining the aforementioned Google Group:

***
Admission to Alt Indie Typo depends on a few basic requirements.
Applicants must:

• have made at least three fonts
• demonstrate competence at type design / font production
• provide samples of their typeface designs
• do not submit font files please

Sorry, but them's the rules.We have to keep this practical and
maintain a focus on font design and production.

We have a few members who aren't font makers who will assist with
logistics and running the group. But no more who are not type
designers / font makers cannot be accepted at this stage of the
enterprize.
***

If and when we/I/… decides to launch a project to create a free family I’ll ensure it sits somewhere accessible with access to the font files, discussion lists, probably on a devoted web page.

Cheers.

Kaffee und Kuchen

This is an email i've Just received:

Re: My proposal of admission under the nickname of Igino Marini

James Arboghast a me

Hi Ignio,
Sorry, you must be a typeface designer and font maker to qualify for
admission to Alt Indie Typo.

As I explained to you at typophile not long ago, spacing is part of
glyph design and a type designer's job, not a task we intend to farm
out to a specialist.

If we need a manual hinter I may get in touch with you later.

Sorry, but I am unable to admit you to the group at this time.

Thanks for your interest tho, we do appreciate it.

best, j a m e s

2009/1/26 Igino Marini :
> Hello, I'm Igino Marini. I would like to be involved in this project
> doing spacing and kerning. I've developed iKern, a tool for
> autospacing and autokerning, and I'm running a service under the same
> name. Obviously I would do it for free! As I say on my site at
> http://ikern.com/k1/service/ :"For years I offered the service for
> free and I would be glad to continue for worth typefaces". As a
> further experience I've realized "The Fell Types" you can find at
> www.iginomarini.com/fell/ .
> From what is my understanding a good manual hinter would be needed
> too.
>
> Igino Marini
>
>

If there is something I keep learning from life is that details are more important than principles.

Igino Marini

Igino, it is unethical to post private emails in a public discussion thread online. But you insist on doing so, forcing me out of typophile retirement to address your transgression of my privacy.

As the whole world can now see, I treated you with respect and politeness. I even apologized for knocking back your application to Alt Indie Typo. One thing I overlooked was misspelling your name "Ignio". Please understand I have impaired eyesite from a stroke I had in January 2007 which also causes me on-going memory dropouts and subsequent loss of accuracy with clerical skills.

You now owe me an apology for compromizing my privacy and for your lack of discretion. This is exactly the kind of unethical, unprofessional behavior I retired from Typophile to get away from.

The Alt Indie Typo group is a private group "open" to all applicants as long as the applicants are capable typeface designers adept at font production. Potential applicants unable to come to terms with that enterprize model are, in the view of Alt Indie Typo's founders and directors, not practical and not realistic. The goal of Alt Indie Typo is to produce fonts.

j a m e s

Igino's digitization of the Fell types does not qualify him as a typeface designer or as a font producer. Most, if not all of the skills involved in font production are intimately intertwined with type design. Like spacing and glyph design, type design and font production go hand in hand, and in my experience are inseparable.

j a m e s

"We are not going to get a formal proposal from someone because the FOSS community does not operate like a traditional business; there is no brief, quote to write or contract to sign. FOSS projects commonly begin with a general invitation to join a cause to scratch an itch."

That maybe an appropriate approach to software ultimately being interpreted by computers, but font software is ultimately interpreted by something else where the itches vary in size, location and intensity, so the scratching must too.

Cheers!

On examining the OpenType versions of Igino's Fell type fonts as vector outlines in Illustrator, I discovered hundreds of glyphs constructed with an abundance of excess points and *stacked points*.

The excess points and stacked points in these fonts will generate lots of postscript errors on rasterization by user agents rendering the type outlines embedded on webpages, resulting in sluggish (slow) rendering times.

Do web designers demanding embeddable web fonts really want font products with this level of technical quality? I certainly would not offer such underdeveloped products under any circumstances. Web designers need and deserve better quality than that of the IM Fell type fonts.

Alt Indie Typo is committed to developing embeddable web fonts without technical errors, complete with EOT and @font-face empowered EULAs.

j a m e s

James, I've decided to publish the email as is because, in fact, you've been polite and respectful, and nothing personal, confidential, offensive or embarrassing was in your words, nor mine, and I didn't want to add or lose something in translation. And more: you answered to my request as Alt Indie Typo group responsible so, in my opinion, there's no privacy issue at all. Many talked about collaborative working here showing technical, practical and also philosophical difficulties. I just wanted to point at the human factor. It was clearly missing from the list!
About the Fell Types: please don't feel obliged to justify your admission criteria. In any case many actually use them without the problems you think will arise and every browser I have display them perfectly.
Anyway I didn't offered my design services at all. Just spacing and kerning.

Igino

I don't agree about posting emails in a public forum. It's something a professional just does not do.

What did you hope to achieve by posting it?

And more: you answered to my request as Alt Indie Typo group responsible so, in my opinion, there’s no privacy issue at all.

False logic. Alt Indie Typo is a private group. Its contents aren't visible to the internet public, and I did not give you permission to make your application public. The whole point of the application process is that it is meant to be a private conversation between the group owner and applicants.

Many talked about collaborative working here showing technical, practical and also philosophical difficulties. I just wanted to point at the human factor.

You chose an unethical way to do that.

About the Fell Types: please don’t feel obliged to justify your admission criteria.

I'll justify whatever I feel like justifying. You offered your Fell fonts to Alt Indie Typo, and accordingly I have given reasons why they don't meet Alt Indie Typo's technical standards. So this part is an issue.

In any case many actually use them without the problems you think will arise and every browser I have display them perfectly.

I tested them in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome, and those fonts render slowly. Speed of rendering is a critical factor for embeddable web fonts. Every font vendor I've had contact with will not accept fonts with stacked points in the outlines, and I conceive of Alt Indie Typo by the same technical standards.

Anyway I didn’t offered my design services at all. Just spacing and kerning.

I thought you were offering your Fell type fonts. I appreciated what you were offering at the time, and as I told you in my reply email, if Alt Indie Typo needs manual hinting services I may contact you if and when the time comes. So it's hard to see the point of what you're saying above.

I can't put any more time into this discussion thread, so I thank you Igino for acting in good faith and for offering the Fell Types and your hinting services. The best thing you can do with the Fell type fonts is clean up the outlines, reduce the number of nodes and eliminate all the stacked points.

j a m e s

@Thomas: I think that on at least one point aszszelp and I are in rather strong agreement: a high quality open source font project involving multiple contributors would need strong leadership and vision to stay on track and maintain that quality. But I suppose that even if the goal is to release something open source, there’s nothing to say that one can’t run the main development line in a less “open” (in the sense of accepting all contributions) fashion.

Thank you Tom for articulating that point so clearly. This is the approach I have taken with Alt Indie Typo. Totally open projects like Wikipedia have massive problems with their user communities. Complete freedom of everyone involved to edit everyone's contributions works for Wikipedia because it's a vast text writing project, but such openness comes with a price attached to it---lots of very stressed-out, frustrated contributors and a massive pseudo-legal arbitration system backed up for six months.

Type design and font production are much more specialized tasks requiring expert contributors. One applicant I had to knock back told me, in his own words, he only wanted to be "a lurker" in Alt Indie Typo. That could only slow us down. It isn't practical to have hangers-on lurking in the group solely to satiate their own curiosity. His use of that word "lurker" made me wonder what his true motive for wanting to be involved was. It's hard not to be circumspect of that word. At any rate, that kind of member would be too distracting.

Alt Indie Typo progress report --- we already have 7/10ths of our base linear (sans serif) type thoroughly designed. This type will serve as the basis for a text font superfamily.

j a m e s

Igino, serves you right. Fancy volunteering your time and effort to an 'open source' project.
Find your own indie whatever. Goodwill has to be deservedly punished.

prgr

@Zara: If you feel that your reputation and well-being is threatened by others in this forum, then I suggest you take *that* discussion offline. Using this thread to focus on the negative aspects of this conversation is not productive to you nor anyone else here.

With all respect to you Zara, and with my intimate understanding of the often touchy and difficult job you do of maintaining civil order at Typophile, your post above shows insensitive semantic form given the situation at the time you wrote it.

"...I suggest you..." is the kind of uppity language used by typophiles and peeple posting in online forums generally that sounds so sanctimonious and deserves to be wiped off the face of the internet. If you have a suggestion to make, leave out the "I suggest you" part and just say what you want to say, like this:

"Users who feel their reputation and well-being is threatened by others in this forum please take that discussion offline --- thank you."

It helps to say please and thank you, and omitting the "you" stuff goes a long way towards placating everyone involved. The rest of that post was fine, no problems and not many ways I can see of improving the semantics.

Note to Tiffany, Punchcut and other mods --- the best way of reacting to this semantic audit of mine is to accept it as fair criticism aimed at improving Typophile. I am on your side. I am on the side of Typophile's users. I am on everybody's side. So -- please take my advice in good faith because it's meant that way, and get off my case because I am trying my utmost to get out of here.

@paragraph: Goodwill has to be deservedly punished.

Haven't got the faintest scintilla of a clue what you mean by that. I've extended loads of good will towards this community and the internet community in general, so I don't feel the least bit nettled by that statement.

To everyone at Typophile --- goodbye and good fortune. I hope nothing else brings me back her in the near to medium-term future.

j a m e s

This is getting ridiculous. For the sake of remaining neutral I’m going to be launching and hosting an OFL-licensed Baskerville revival based on the work thus far by James Puckett. I have not yet picked a revision control system or a place to host the actual files—I’m currently contemplating GitHub.

For the info page thus far, please see: http://klepas.org/openbaskerville/

Regards.
—Pascal

Kaffee und Kuchen

Though I don't imagine that the end result will be anything spectacular (for some reason, a patchwork quilt comes to mind), I do like the initiative. If it teaches something about type design to those who participate, then that can't be a bad thing.

johno

This is getting ridiculous.

Your complete lack realism makes my mind boggle with incredulity.

j a m e s

Pascal, you jumped the gun.
I thought the idea was to find out what people wanted first.
I doubt it would be Fry's Baskerville in any way, shape or form.

@Nick: Finding out what kind of fonts the F/OSS world wants is a pretty big project; starting on them from scratch is even bigger. Getting a team together to finish something simple seems, at least to me, like a good way to get a small team of interested individual together before proceeding with a larger project.

It's a waste of time.
Do you expect to challenge and inspire people by offering them the opportunity to do hack work?

Well some people climb really extraordinarily tall mountains and for no other reason then to say that they did. I wouldn't worry in this case why people would jump at an opportunity to do "hack work". And as alluded to earlier, this could be a wonderful learning opportunity for all.

"Well some people climb really extraordinarily tall mountains..."
And I'm sure their motto is to pick it, and the route, and stick too that mountain.;)

"...a pretty big project; starting on them from scratch is even bigger."
But if you start with a well crafted and widely accepted kanji, you're more than halfway home.

"...David ha[th] indicated that -he- would be happy to work on fonts for open source release if [...] paid"
Not really interested in the money, as much as the specification, perhaps prematurely, but ultimately believing the specification for this 'market' will be for a font beyond the current puny human collections of styles captured 'definitively' in (what I suspect are) hundreds of glyph tables, along with thousands of extra somewhat uncoordinated tables to be shipped as a mass of semi-uncustomizeable menu splat resulting mostly in gigo.

Guess what I'm thinking :)

Cheers!

Well some people climb really extraordinarily tall mountains and for no other reason then to say that they did.

So why would they bother to walk a well-beaten path up a small hill?

James, I'm really sorry someone pasted the body of an email in public like that. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Klepas, is this the ridiculousness you're talking about? I hope your comment is limited to that.

I've been amused tracking this thread, not solely by reading it, but by listening in to the back channel on Twitter. A Twitter thread about a Typophile thread. Welcome to the internet age. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Typophile

Regarding closing this thread... Closing a thread isn't standard practice here. However, I'll invite you again to start a new thread with the core of the idea that interested parties can participate in. When you clearly invite the interested people you'll get a leaner, more focused conversation.

I hope your comment is limited to that.

Well, I also think it's ridiculous now. And, no, my comment is not limited to that.

prgr

Joe Pemberton—thank you sir. You're an honorable man and I'm very grateful for the vast opportunity Typophile provides for debate and discussion. Your policy of not closing threads is fundamental to freedom of expression and the openness of typophile. Please retain that policy in future.

@Claudio—contrary to your uninformed speculation, Tom has not lost interest in his idea. He simply chooses not to discuss it here any more; he is discussing it with me and the other members of Alt Indie Typo instead.
Your speculation amounts to an ad hominem "argument against the man", a logical fallacy, so it has no merit.

@ Nick, James Pucket, David Berlow, Tiffany and others calling for a F/OSS spec—I am willing to set up another Google group dedicated to obtaining input from web designers and from type developers and other interested parties to arrive at a spec. I won't have time to chair that group but the group itself would be open to all who wish to participate (no entrance criteria) and offer 100% transparency.

Alternatively you could add a new special interest forum / group here at Typophile and appoint a chairperson. I think Sii and Thomas Phinney are the best qualified for that job, so perhaps you could have both Sii and Thomas overseeing discussions there. If you set that up I'll gladly read but I won't be posting.

j a m e s

James, I’m really sorry someone pasted the body of an email in public like that.

Hello Mr.Pemberton, please excuse my english but I haven't completely understood what you meant with “like that”. Were you referring to a specific content of the email (an information “like that”)? Or were you referring to a general “etiquette” issue (a behaviour “like that”)?

Igino Marini

@dberlow: Yes, I think you're right; the fat binary VFBs are useless for version control based collaboration. I think outline-based font development isn't that great either, because the system in the typeface family isn't very well recorded in a set of superpolator UFOs either... MetaFont was much better, and the Kalliculator suggests that those concepts can translate into GUIs. The free software font community is slowly working on this; http://tinkerhouse.net/lettersoup/About/Concepts is a leading example.

@everyone: I hope that the Open Font Library will become the natural home for project like OpenBaskerville and altindietypo after its upcoming launch this year. Thanks to Paul Hunt for mentioning it! :-)

Best,
Dave

Even though there is no clear brief at this point, having some practice projects to test out the best way of working on a collaborative type project of this nature is probably a good idea before we all actually agree on something. Indie type and a Baskerville revival are perfect opportunities of that and I hope both parties will communicate their learnings.

Pascal, I own a dedicated server if you need some hosting space.

Cheers,
Haley

@HaleyFiege: Thanks for the offer. I’m planning on sticking the font files into a github repository today, so they’ll be hosting that. Otherwise I should be covered. Thanks again though. :)

Kaffee und Kuchen

Speaking of open source fonts, wasn't Hrant once given a grant to do an open source Baskerville a few years back? Whatever happened to that? Was the project dropped and the money returned or are the fonts out there, hidden?

Also, I've noticed something else weird: why do so many student font projects either end up as commercial projects or simply not get released at all? Maybe a good place to look for open source fonts would be to track down people who have done fonts as a final project for school and see if they wouldn't mind releasing those as FOSS.

This Baskerville face is fine and those whose work and generosity brought it forth should be commended for a type design well executed. But it is not the base of a style set upon which an open source effort begins.

All such fonts have a core set that begins with sans, sans monospaced, and symbol. Next in the style set are bold, italic and bold italic to complete the sans and sans monospaced. Then comes serif and monospaced serif followed by their bold, italic, and bold italics. Look around, (this is probably not the best situation in which to choose your own ground).

Not only is it lazy-seeming to start with a willowy and cross-device averse Baskerville (its reason for being), but there is no need to break up styles by character group within a script, to farm out for design as there are lots of styles and scripts required. Extended language support gets added as progress is accepted. Extending language support in a display Baskerville will not be likable with visual compatibility, (think kanji).

Starting without a spec and, claiming any kind of group view, will be unfortunate for this group. Sii and Thomas must know these things all too well — or are they hiding what they know, or have they lost it?

Cheers!

DB: I've already expressed my strong support for specifications and strong leadership in open source font development - or any collaborative font development, really. I certainly agree with you (and whoever else suggested it) that Fry's Baskerville, being a display cut of Baskerville of seemingly limited appeal/versatility, would not be high on my list of typefaces worth doing as a big open source project. Between that and just being busy, I decided not to look into the Baskerville project much more. (The sans project might be interesting, but again I'm too darn busy right now.)

Cheers,

T

In case you are not aware of it, already, you might want to have a look at http://openfontlibrary.fontly.org/

http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/tag/open-fonts
Before Constant VZW started Not-Courier typeface, they were talking about starting an open DIN-Schriften, since the original typeface drawing seems to be open.
Anyway, the Manuale Tipografico of Giambattista Bodoni seems to be public domain as well, as well those Claude Garamond original drawings.
Would be great all of these original drawings being available easily and freely, for colaborativelly we can start developing open versions of them...

Thomas I hear you, and am delighted to hear you're busy.

"http://openfontlibrary.fontly.org/" reminds me visually of gum we can all share orally.

Cheers!

Ugly, indeed.

This Baskerville face is fine…But it is not the base of a style set upon which an open source effort begins.

Fry’s Baskerville…would not be high on my list of typefaces worth doing as a big open source project.

I don’t think point of the project is to create an awesome open-source Baskerville based on Fry’s. I think that everyone realizes the open-source world really doesn’t need a Baskerville designed to use at p48 and up. But what is going to come out of this is the work Pascal is doing to set up an open-source font project. If he can put a small team together and finish this simple task, they don’t have to worry about how to set up the server, what file formats to use, software, etc. when they move on to a big project. All they’ll have to do is write a brief, replicate a development environment that functions as needed, and get to work.

I agree with James - I see this more as an exploration and experimentation with methodology and process (i.e. how to best apply open-source methodology and processes to font creation and development).

Lavoisier, a fully free/open-source sans typeface has been released.

@kajout - thanks about the Lavoisier project link, but it is anyway released with a huge and shameful typographic mistake, like shown at http://www.papress.com/thinkingwithtype/resources/crimes_italics.htm

There is a whole heck of a lot more wrong with Lavoisier than the oblique italics. Just in a couple of minutes I noted:

- no optical adjustment where curves meet straights. hmnru are horrible
- inconsistent sidebearings (left straight cap: 56 or 60? left round cap 41 or 44?)
- just bad sidebearings (Z and N have the same left sidebearing, while s is 60% of Z)
- slightly inconsistent stem weights for no obvious reason
- horizontals are not enough thinner than the verticals to be optically the same. They look too thick or the verticals too thin.

Also, where curves turn into straights is very clunky to my eyes. Either give it an angled join or make it smooth, but the status quo looks bad. I suppose this could be argued to be a design feature (unlike the errors above), but I'm skeptical at best.

This is real amateur stuff. In a one-day seminar on type design, I'd cover all these points. Heck, I think I covered all these points in my 45-minute talk on font quality for "TypoBerlin" last year. They are just fundamentals.

(No wonder type professionals and serious aficionados are skeptical about quality for open source fonts.)

Cheers,

T

@Thomas Phinney: When is your next 1 day seminar? :-)

Thomas, as you noted, Lavoisier is real amateur stuff. That’s not an open-source issue—there’s plenty of commercial fonts with the same problems on MyFonts. If an open-source type design project were to be managed by experienced designers this sort of stuff wouldn’t make it into to project files.

But that does bring us back to the earlier problem—how does the experienced designer pay his mortgage when he’s taking time from work to oversee a free font project?

James: But that does bring us back to the earlier problem—how does the experienced designer pay his mortgage when he’s taking time from work to oversee a free font project?

Someone, somewhere, pays him. Even a reasonable likelihood of income is usually enough to get a type designer moving. I'm working on a project now that took two years of planning before the contract was signed, including a lot of work on glyph set definition, making spreadsheets, costing the development, etc. all of which was done before I was assured of any payment. But I was willing because I knew that the client had the money and serious intent, so it was a reasonable investment of my time. So far, every open source font sounding has been incredibly nebulous. I'm waiting for someone to come along and say 'We have a grant/investment of X number of dollars/euros and want to commission some fonts that will be released under an open source license'.

It seems to me that one of the problems of open source advocates is that they are coming to type designers presuming that we are going to be enthusiastic about treating type design as open source software development. It isn't, and I'm not enthusiastic. As far as I'm concerned, open source or proprietary is a licensing choice that has absolutely nothing to do with design. So rather than looking for type designers to play at being open source software developers, I think interested parties should get their hands on some cash and then commission some fonts the same way our commercial and institutional clients commission fonts.

@James Puckett: Thousands of companies’ profits are based on things that are freely sharable and modifiable, so it seems possible to me that the experienced designer can pay his mortgage by overseeing a free font project. "Free as in freedom, not as in price" :-)

@abattis/Dave: You'll need to be more specific about exactly how that works. I'm not saying it's inconceivable, but you'll need to suggest a model for it.

@John: I think we are in violent agreement.

Cheers,

T

@Thomas: Assuming you mean about FOSS business models, well, to become living proof myself I have to graduate Reading first, which for personal life stuff is proving quite a struggle at the moment, but there are hundreds of companies that profit handsomely from creative works that are freely redistributable and modifiable, and plenty of articles on the web explaining how they do it. If you meant about your next 1 day workshop, is a similar situation: I've never run a workshop so I can't say anything about that, but I'm sure if you advertised it here on TP you'd get plenty of people signing up :-)

Dave, how many of the people giving creative work away are doing it to hook someone into a service contract, or sell concert tickets, or something similar? Type designers don’t have that option—we can’t give fonts away and make money supporting them. I don’t see how the free razor blade/MySQL/RHEL/Snort model applies to fonts.

@James: Exactly my thinking. That's why I want to see a model explained for it. What is it these folks are going to do to make money once they've given away the font?

Cheers,

T

apart of all this discussion about type drawing quality, can someone related to Open-Baskerville being present at Libre-Graphics-Meeting Montreal for presenting it and sharing some ideas there as well? it would be very interesting, since constantvzw.org did the same in Poland about NotCourier typeface...

@James @Thomas - well, it's simple really, you make the typeface, then using the free font, create a logo that you then plaster on some disposable razors... which you bundle free with magazines, which gets people hooked on the razors... and err... means that you sell more razors... hmmm... and then... um... you make money?

;-)

@Simon: Heh. My problem exactly, no reason that benefit accrues in any way to the person who designed the typeface.

T

It would be interesting to know more about the contributors to this thread.
How many of you for example rely entirely on type design for your living or are totally self employed? How many of you are financially secure? etc . I don't really want to know the answers but from my experience of over 40 years I find that self employed designers/craftsmen etc without financial security, can normally understand the attitudes of those with financial security better than the other way round.
As one who is totally self employed there is nothing I would like to do more than give of my talents freely for the benefit of others, and indeed I have done so on so many occasions. My family suffered as a result but my Bank manager was delighted as he could enjoy the interest on my overdraft.

Many years ago I was a Chairman of a prestigious society and I willingly gave my services and help for free and hopefully helped many people. But after 2 years I had to give it up as my freelance work and family suffered badly.
There is nothing I would like more now than to put my 40 years experience with lettering into font design as I feel I have learnt so much. But can I afford to do so - NO.
I have no financial security so I have to keep on working to make ends meet.
This is not meant to be a sob story or an excuse to get the violin out but to ask some of you to grow up and face reality. Not all of us can give our time for free even if our hearts want to.

If you want the best-pay for it.

From my long experience I have come to realize that many of those who expect things for free normally have low standards and lack professionalism and don't really appreciate what is really involved in good design.

Ieuan Rees

edited