On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 7:19 PM, Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
We basically tried the equivalent of this (placing
relatively free fonts
unknown on most platforms first) which Kaldari talked about previously.
Ultimately that kind of declaration is useless for the vast majority of
users and we got very specific negative feedback about it on the Talk page.
(..)
These fonts are ignored by most systems when placed
first or when placed
later in the stack. Systems match the first font they recognize, so using
something they don't recognize or putting it later is a largely just
feel-good measure.
Thanks Steven et al. It's clear from
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/108155/ that everyone involved is
trying to do the right thing. :)
I agree with Rob's follow-up question here --
https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Typography_refresh&dif…
i.e. we should document our assessment of freely licensed fonts and
any associated design or rendering issues. Even if specifying
alternative fonts in the stack _is_ largely symbolic, to the extent
that we can express our values through our choices here without
negative side effects, we should.
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation