Liam R E Quin wrote:
Yes. Instead of giving you digital files with limited usage controlled
by software, they don't let you have the file at all.
"At least we don't have to wear leg-irons when we walk outside"
"Right, they solved that by keeping us indoors"
totally true and a great point, and as kottke points out in a quick
report (http://www.kottke.org/09/05/typekit-real-fonts-for-the-web),
that's pretty darn close to the Youtube model.
some relevant differences regarding online type, though:
* support for embedding the fonts is already mostly there, whereas
support for embedded video in HTML took quite some time after Youtube et
al did it with Flash
* libre video hosting facilities, likewise, took some time to appear;
with OFL, there's already some headway (OFL is there, Typekit is
vaporware so far)
* fonts are much less an active element of an online experience -- i'll
happily watch 10 videos on Youtube, forward them to my friends and
forget about them the next day; online fonts aren't really the kind of
subject you'd bring up at a party, or share with anyone other than a
type designer or web developer.
* which reminds me -- with Typekit, you're not supposed to share, just
watch a font being used in a page. So the OFL model has still a major
selling point compared to TypeKit -- no dependency on 'upstream',
ability to download and edit, FLOSS approach to filling out gaps (e.g. i
doubt they'll support non-latin alphabets out from the start), and no
financial compromise of any sort.
But the good side is that they're helping (perhaps) to fuel demand.
totally -- i usually try to convince people to switch to a free tool by
mentioning 'it's does the stuff InIllusShop does, but it's free, open,
transparent, scriptable, community-driven [...]'. Maybe having a
proprietary tool to compare with might be a good thing for doing PR
(much as the EOT page on the OFL wiki helps make a point regarding open
fonts).
ricardo
