Re: Public Domain Fonts for the Web

tiro@tiro.com

Sent me a private email that once  very valuable and explained  his view
of the font industry. And no he did not agree with me : )

This is the last email I will make on the subject.

Here's my response

Thank you this is the first reasonable response I have received from
this group. I  now understand your position.  And see your problems.
 I will now no longer discuss the matter.


I will post this response to the group since I suspect everyone
think I'm and ass. I simply did not understand the "industry".

If the fonts are  mainly developed  by smaller companies that do not have
a lot of extra resources and probably only produce fonts as a product.
And off hand  induvidually the probably  do not have such a large collection of
fonts
that the release of even one to promote a standard is acceptable.
I don't agree but I accept this position esp for small companies.
None of the big computer companies Apple/Microsoft  gain by releasing a common set
of fonts.
They may make many freely avialbel on there platform but they have no driving
force to agree to even a few common ones. : (
Opentype by adobe creates a standard file format but file formats are not the
issue.
The same fonts on all platforms is what I would like

In short there is no computer entity that would benefit  from free fonts
and is capable of making the contribution. Offhand only IBM or SUN would have any
reason.
IBM needs standard java thus standard fonts the same to some extent SUN.
The only other group are people like me not wanting to play fonts substitution
games
with no common default.  Most  platforms have and extensive and different set of
fonts.

Not having a good set of fonts that are the same on all platforms
does cause a *lot* of problems.

I'll simply drop to plan B and  pick  through the free "crud"
to find a few good ones.  There are a few  but I have seen quit bit of garbage
or  many font styles not for normal use. When  I get a decent collection together
I will make it publicly available.  Then make them the default and let the user
override
with the platform specific  font  of there choice instead of me playing guessing
games.

It does solve my problems it is not the best solution.
It is clear that a standard set of fonts will not be avialable any time soon.
I would call  my approach a substandard instead of a standard : )


Gone dumpster diving : )

Mike

mike@jmaca.com

Received on Tuesday, 24 February 1998 19:36:24 UTC