Patric Andries continued: > > On Dec 2, 2003, at 7:35 PM, Patrick Andries wrote: > > > > > Well, some fonts would be better than none (and they have to be made > > > so that > > > the Unicode standard be printed). > > > > > > > The Unicode standard doesn't require Unicode to be printed. A lot of > > the fonts used to print the book are Windows symbols fonts, with the > > code chart-generating code automatically remapping them as needed. > > I didn't mean to imply this, but I believe this indexing is a minor effort > when compared to the font drawing aspect and those fonts,
True, but... A. Many of these fonts are encumbered with highly restricted licenses and IP agreements enabling use *only* for publication of the standards (Unicode *and* 10646). B. The management of the fonts for the publication of the standards is already a resource-bound task that is somewhat of a QA nightmare and which contributes significantly to the time it takes to produce each new version of the standard. There are no extra cycles here to devote to also trying to repackage and market these fonts for general use, *even if* they weren't encumbered by license agreements. > once remapped and > even as unpolished or unhinted as they could be, would really be useful to > users as fallback (or last resort) resources. I believe this could be easy > for scripts that need no contextual processing. A nice added value. Well, sure. But people have been wanting the Unicode Consortium to provide free (or cheap) fonts to support Unicode for, um... *looks at calendar* ... over a decade now. It has never happened, because the officers, the editors, the directors, the members, have never figured out how to assemble the expertise, the resources, and the time to make the consortium function effectively as a font house, in addition to its primary role as a character encoding standards development organization. Besides, it always had the danger of putting the consortium into competition with typographers who are trying to make a living designing and selling fonts for support of Unicode (among other things), and that would not be a good thing. If people really want the Unicode Consortium to start releasing fonts into the public domain for the greater good, the most effective way to accomplish anything along those lines would be for people/groups/corporations with such agendas to join the consortium as voting members to press their case and to bring the necessary resources to bear to deal with the licensing, IP, packaging, marketing, and maintenance aspects of such work. Short of that, it is very unlikely that anything different is going to happen along these lines than has already happened in the last ten years of this discussion -- nothing. More effective, in my opinion, would be to press the owners and designers of such fonts -- the actual typographers and font foundaries -- to market their fonts as they see fit and as would be useful. > > I also agree that having more of the (western if I may be Eurocentric) music > symbols, maths symbols and even parts of braces like 23AB in standard fonts > would be a real service to users. Sure would. I hope the font designers are listening. --Ken
