Announcement: new font technology association to be formed

[John Hudson]

On Thursday, 20 February 2003, twenty-three individuals representing all 
levels of the type business, from individual designers and small foundries 
to major font publishers and software developers, gathered in Heidelberg in 
response to an open invitation from the ATypI Technology Committee. The 
main agenda item was to examine options and define the best possible model 
for co�peration on technical issues between font developers, font tool 
developers and system/application developers. Due to potential antitrust 
issues stemming from the ATypI statutes and membership structure, Adobe 
Systems last year raised concerns about the appropriateness of that 
association being involved in standards development, and announced that 
they would not be able to participate in such development within the 
framework of ATypI. Although, to date, Adobe is the only company to have 
voiced such concerns, it is clear that active co�peration within the font 
and software industries requires the free and unfettered participation of 
all interested parties. In addition to this legal issue, concerns were 
raised at the Heidelberg meeting about the lack of focus and clear 
direction within ATypI. Given that technical issues are of overriding 
importance to those individuals and companies whose principal business is 
the making and selling of fonts, and that we are in a period of major 
change in font formats and tools, it is in the interests of the type 
business to create an organisation to address these issues in a focused and 
effective way. At the conclusion of the Heidelberg meeting, the attendees 
unanimously voiced assent to the creation of a new international 
association. A small steering committee has been formed to shepherd the new 
association into existence.

International Font Technology Association (IFTA)

Preliminary report and structural proposals (under consideration of 
steering committee):

In order to maintain the focus of the new association, and also to ensure 
that its activities do not overlap with the traditional legal, business, 
educational and design concerns of ATypI and other organisations, the 
Heidelberg meeting identified three r�les for IFTA:

1. To develop and publish standards, industry recommendations, and 
developer resources.
2. To facilitate co�peration and information exchange between font, tool 
and software developers.
3. To provide a point of contact between the type business and related 
standards organisations, e.g. Unicode, World Wide Web consortium.

Membership in the new association will be open to any individual or company 
whose principal business is the development of fonts, tools for making 
fonts, or other software that relates directly to or has a central reliance 
on fonts. An appropriate, multi-tiered membership structure is being 
considered by the steering committee, and will include both full and 
associate membership at corporate and individual levels, as well as 
provision for invited expert/consultant membership. An effort is being made 
to define a level of membership between individuals and corporations that 
reflects the small size of many digital font foundries.

The steering committee has four goals:

1. To draw up statutes and an intellectual property policy.
2. To establish the association as a legal, non-profit entity in an 
appropriate jurisdiction.
3. To put in place an appropriate web presence and e-mail discussion fora 
for members and developers at large.
4. To open the door for membership at the earliest opportunity.

Once the membership reaches a certain level (to be determined and announced 
when the first members are admitted), the steering committee will step down 
and a board will be elected. The board will be a small body (not more than 
seven people) with a facilitating r�le, and will be popularly elected (one 
vote per full and associate member). The board will have the power, at the 
request of members, to form working groups and committees to pursue 
specifically defined goals and to develop and publish standards, industry 
recommendations and resources for font developers.

Full and associate members may participate in working groups and 
committees, as may invited experts/consultants. Proposals, working papers 
and expert feedback will be welcome from all levels of membership and also 
from developers at large. All working groups and committees will seek 
consensus, but in the event that a vote is required only full members may 
vote; votes will be distributed according to membership level.

A website, from which additional information and updates will be available, 
will be online soon, and will be announced in this forum.