Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
Dave Crossland wrote: Hi, At the LGM2009 Nicolas and I had some discussions about the OFLB terminology, and I thought I'd raise these points on the list for wider discussion. One of the terms was the Fonts/Typefaces distinction. Nicolas felt that the current v2 site uses the term typefaces too much (I hope you can explain here why) Alright, my main concern was that we somehow suddenly loose the explicit recognition of the software nature of fonts: - we may endanger the legal status of the fonts submitted to us by designers wishing to reserve some right on their fonts: attribution and copyleft. - we loose an opportunity to explain to our users the difference between typeface and font If the typeface is the design or the set of characters forming a whole family similar in style then the font is the software expression of that design, right? The original piece of metal (from which the word font comes from) is now a piece of software when the design is expressed/implemented. If we only publish the designs: a nice ethereal concept of beauty thought up by a skilled designer, and we do not talk about fonts as the digital representation and expression of that design as software, then it seems to me that we open a dangerous possibility: what's preventing people from using their peculiar local legal system to take the designs and modify them against their authors' will embodied in their chosen licensing? In effect abusing their creation via our hosting service? IMHO we can't keep on saying that we don't really know if fonts are software or not... We need to make a stand and explain that clearly for both authors and users. Through the Berne convention authors worldwide can assert their copyright + licensing on their creation and not have others take their creations and use it ways they don't intend. (the US is also a signatory to the Berne convention). With our free software license we use copyright to actually secure continued access to our software and prevent lockup and exclusivity: we grant and reserve rights. So we are interested in the global standing of copyright law. I think we need to the upload and the download page clearer on that aspect. For example, the TypoFonderie EULAs talk about both typeface design and fonts. I suspect to get around this potential problem. (The laws in France (article L112-1) explicitly mention oeuvres typographiques as being protected by droit d'auteur (copyright law) and there is jurisprudence (judicial precedent)) but I suspect designers are worried about other jurisdictions. and I feel that since people who make new fonts/typefaces talk about themselves as typeface designers and talk about typefaces, we should speak their language as much as possible; and that the distinction between the two is quite a fine detail and its okay to refer to each as the other when not talking precisely. I fully agree with speaking the language of designers but AFAIK they also speak about fonts and their software nature. We also need to be clear for our users. Users don't have typeface folders, typeface menus, typeface managers and so on on their desktops do they? AFAICT they mostly talk about fonts. What do you think? Cheers, Dave Cheers, -- Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary http://planet.open-fonts.org signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
We do have a mixed usage at the moment
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
Hi, Christopher Fynn wrote: And this: http://jontangerine.com/log/2008/08/typeface--font Thanks. John puts it very well. For languages other than English, the question remains open. But as I meant to imply yesterday, I think for English we have it right. Cheers, Ben -- Ben Weiner | http://readingtype.org.uk/about/contact.html
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sounds solved. Next. :) Jon Phillips +1.415.830.3884 (global) +86.132.6817.8381 (beijing) j...@rejon.org On May 13, 2009 7:01 AM, Dave Crossland d...@lab6.com wrote: We do have a mixed usage at the moment
[OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
Hi, At the LGM2009 Nicolas and I had some discussions about the OFLB terminology, and I thought I'd raise these points on the list for wider discussion. One of the terms was the Fonts/Typefaces distinction. Nicolas felt that the current v2 site uses the term typefaces too much (I hope you can explain here why) and I feel that since people who make new fonts/typefaces talk about themselves as typeface designers and talk about typefaces, we should speak their language as much as possible; and that the distinction between the two is quite a fine detail and its okay to refer to each as the other when not talking precisely. What do you think? Cheers, Dave
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces
I will just say that most people think of is fonts. So good to use right terms, but also important to consider commaner. Jon Phillips +1.415.830.3884 (global) +86.132.6817.8381 (beijing) j...@rejon.org On May 12, 2009 5:27 PM, Ben Weiner b...@readingtype.org.uk wrote: Hi Dave Crossland wrote: At the LGM2009 Nicolas and I had some discussions about the OFLB termi... I agree with the foregoing, but here is an explanation. Believe it or not, the use of 'Typeface' was very carefully considered, at least when we were thinking about the style and editorial tone of the OFLB. I think we largely succeeded in carrying our decisions through to the site pages and the new wiki docs. 'Typeface' refers to all the members of a visually related font family, so the ccHost 'upload' page became a 'Typeface record' because users are encouraged to produce multiple weights - a family, in other words - and upload them to the same typeface record. Typically the members of the family (each of which would traditionally have been called a 'fount' or 'font') are regular/Roman, bold, italic, etc. There could be different scripts in the family too; as long as they share a common visual style, and by implication a common origin. When we talk about 'fonts' on OFLB we should be referring to the files in which the typeface family members are encoded. Font files can now contain any number of typeface family members, so perhaps these multi-member files should be called 'typeface files' instead. Cheers, Ben -- Ben Weiner | http://readingtype.org.uk/about/contact.html
