To take the definition of the CSS font-family property " This property specifies a prioritized list of font family names or generic family names" [1].

Thus if this change puts a free font first we are thus saying "supporting free fonts is our priority". I'm not sure any other big sites do this and I think that in itself is a big fricking deal.

I think regardless of install base and bugs in that free font we send out a message that might give a lot of attention to free fonts and be a positive thing for FOSS in general. The font might be downloaded more and that font might be packaged in OS installs as a result of this.

Restricting ourselves to only free fonts seems like cutting your nose off to spite your face. As Steven points out we have to think about the world we live in and that we want our content to be as readable as possible (as we want to imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge and to share it helping them read it plays a big part).

On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:46 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg@wikimedia.org> wrote:

Any concious choice to promote non-Free *anything* is a choice we must
make with eyes wide open. Discussion about the Free-ness of our software
(and what that software relies on/promotes) is valid in our community.
It isn't easier than ignoring those aspects. But it's the right thing to
do. Saying that our ideals about Free Software are "irrational" only
makes the Design team sound out of touch.

This is the sticking point. You've basically admitted that the problem is the possible appearance that we're "promoting" unfree software. Not that we're actually depending on or delivering unfree software.

The idea that we're somehow widely and officially promoting unfree software here is frankly a gut reaction that is not supported in fact. Users will need to inspect our CSS in order to even view the font settings. Most users do not know how to do this. For those that do (i.e. programmers), they should know well enough that CSS means we are not delivering un-free software, but rather doing what almost every site without webfonts does. That is: listing a font stack that is appropriate for users of many platforms, free and unfree, mobile and desktop.

The vasty majority of our users are on unfree platforms and/or do not have quality FOSS fonts at their disposal. Our CSS and other styles should look readable and beautiful on those platforms. The good way to do that today, given our constraints, is to explicitly acknowledge some small parts of this in our font stack, while also making it as widely usable across platforms. CSS and browser font styles are really good at doing this, with fallbacks etc.

Steven Walling,

Product Manager

https://wikimediafoundation.org/

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