[Foundation-l] Fonts - Wikimedia-l

20 Jul 2005

Hoi,
I am doing some research for Ultimate Wiktionary. As Ultimate Wiktionary 
intends to have all words in all languages, a consequence will be that 
all those words that are in rare fonts will not be viewable. This is to 
some extend already an issue. It is quite normal when we have an article 
in wikipedia about a foreign place to include the way it is written in 
that country. This is problematic for places like Ethiopia, Georgia or 
Thailand to name just a few with interesting fonts.

On previous wikimeets I attended we did discuss the need for a 
collection of fonts that would include as many fonts as we can get for 
our public. It would help a lot if we could have one resource that is 
free for use and that does include all the needed fonts. If it requires 
a reasonable amount of money to buy a missing font to make it Free, I 
think it is worthy of consideration. I am also sure that when we 
acknowledge the people who make fonts available for this purpose we will 
be able to get many resources for free.

The issue of fonts came again to my attention because I do not have 
braille of signing language fonts and I really would like to be able to 
include the words and their representation in script in the Ultimate 
Wiktionary as well. Technically speaking, it is not necessary for me to 
have these fonts but I do consider it wrong to have content that the 
average user will not be able to display. Therefore my request to 
consider having fonts as a resource that we want to support for our users.

Thanks,
  GerardM