[Foundation-l] Fonts

[Gerard Meijssen]

Zachary Harden wrote:

> Dear Gerard,
>
> That sounds like a good idea, but I do have a question: what do you 
> mean by making fonts "free"?
>
> Regards,
>
> Zachary Harden, en:User:Zscout370

Hoi,
There are many Fonts out there already, some are Free some are shareware 
and some are proprietary. With Freeing a font I mean, making them open 
source or free software. The intention is that all our users will be 
allowed to use it from a license point of view.

Thanks,
    GerardM

>
>> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>> Subject: [Foundation-l] Fonts
>> Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 16:57:00 +0200
>>
>> 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. 
>