Re: Public Domain Fonts for the Web

Mike Emmel wrote:

>Why is Apple giving away a good bit of Quicktime technology.
>Where did OpenGL come from ?? TCP/IP ??  HTTPD HTML XML,PDF viewers
>Netscapes web browser, Java, C, C++ ........................  and more. The
list
>is endless.

Apple gives away such software and releases such specs for the same reason
that Microsoft gives away fonts and publishes specs: they are adding value
to their commercial software and encouraging third party development that
will add value to Apple and MS products.

Mike, if you have a technology to which you want to add value by making more
fonts available for it, I suggest you pay for the development of such fonts.
Do you honestly think the stuff Apple and Microsoft gives away was donated
to them? No, they paid for it, as an investment in added value.

Fonts add value to other software, ergo fonts are valuable, ergo they should
be paid for. Understand?

Personally, I'm all in favour of more and better free fonts, but somebody
has to pay for their design and manufacturing. Most of the custom type work
we do is bundled with speciality software apps; the app developers pay us
because our fonts add value to their product.

So by all means advocate for a standard set of free fonts, just don't expect
professionals in any industry to selflessly donate their time and talents.

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks
Vancouver, BC
www.tiro.com
tiro@tiro.com

Received on Tuesday, 24 February 1998 17:35:18 UTC