On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) <[email protected] > wrote:
> I came across Gerrit change 79948[1] today, which makes "VectorBeta" > use a pile of non-free fonts (with one free font thrown in at the end > as a sop). Is this really the direction we want to go, considering > that in many other areas we prefer to use free software whenever we > can? > > Looking around a bit, I see this has been discussed in some "back > corners"[2][3] (no offense intended), but not on this list and I don't > see any place where free versus non-free was actually discussed rather > than being brought up and then seemingly ignored. > > In case it helps, I did some searching through mediawiki/core and > WMF-deployed extensions for font-family directives containing non-free > fonts. The results are at > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Anomie/font-family (use of > non-staff account intentional). > You're leaving out two key facts here: 1. The 'VectorBeta' change is to create an _opt-in_ beta for typography changes, as part of the release of BetaFeatures extension. We'd only be providing something to users who want to try this font stack. It's a choice they get to make, and in that sense I think it's a little wrong for us to dictate anything based solely on ideology. 2. This beta font stack for desktop is based primarily on our mobile font stack, which is already the default seen by all mobile readers and editors on Wikimedia projects. People keep saying "traditionally" we have not specified a real font stack, but the truth is we abandoned that tradition going back to October 2012: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/24/wikipedia-mobile-gets-a-new-look/In other words: this is only new for desktop. This would only be applying the mobile style font stack on desktop, for users who want to try it. Other than that, I think Brion brings up some really good points to consider. BTW, the bug related to your search in core etc. is https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46437 We have never and will never ship a proprietary font to users who do not have one installed, and I think we should maybe make that an official policy if it isn't already. However, specifying better font families for users that already have them can and has improved the experience for millions of readers. Wikimedia projects and MediaWiki seem like dinosaurs, even within the FOSS community, by enforcing a standard of using whatever random sans serif a user has, and nothing more. Many FOSS communities have dealt with the trade off between great-looking fonts and freedom by commissioning foundries to get their own free fonts. See also: Ubuntu, Android, and more. I've talked to the design team about this idea, including perhaps getting a foundry to donate a unique font stack in exchange for the publicity they'd get. The trade-off is that it's extremely time consuming and (if we don't get a donation) it's very expensive. That doesn't mean it's not potentially worth it, but it's a big undertaking for the design team. Not to mention the fact that we have very little experience delivering webfonts to all users in a performant way. Steven _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
