Re: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Adam Twardoch <list.adam@twardoch.com> wrote:
> This is the major issue that some of the "free software" proponents seem
> to forget: very often, there is no choice between so-called "will there
> be free software" and "will there be proprietary software". Instead, the
> choice is "will there be software at all" or "will there be no software
> at all".

In some cases, yes.  This is not one of those cases.  At worst, this
is the much more common case of choosing between something that's free
but of lower quality in some respects, and something that's
proprietary but higher-quality in some respects.  I reiterate that I
don't think most people can spot the difference between free fonts and
commercial ones, and I certainly can't, so from my perspective the
difference in quality is zero.  Professional typographers would
disagree, clearly, but in any event there will definitely be *some*
free fonts for all languages (as far as I know, there already are).

> If there is a chance that a larger part of the human society worldwide
> can read and write their own language on the internet, all stakeholders
> should sort their priorities and look for a model that will give those
> people that chance under _any_ model.
>
> Where I come from, freedom for people should come first _before_ the
> freedom for other things (like software or capital).

This seems to suppose that only commercial fonts will implement all
writing systems.  Could you give an example of a writing system that
is supported by Unicode but not yet by any free font?  As long as at
least one free font exists for a given writing system, people will be
able to read and write their own language on the Internet regardless
of whether retail fonts are available.

Received on Friday, 14 November 2008 00:50:07 UTC