On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.orgwrote:
That's not quite accurate. The new font stack is based on feedback from Linux users who preferred that we take advantage of the font-mapping built into Linux rather than trying to guess arbitrary fonts that may or may not be installed on their machine.
And ignoring the feedback from users who would rather see free fonts explicitly supported?
"Helvetica", "Times", etc. are not non-free software, they are names of well-established (non-copyrighted) typefaces
Considering that typefaces aren't eligible for copyright in the US,[1] that's not saying anything.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protection_of_typefaces
We're trying to balance the requirements of the designers
I've been seeing a trend lately where the "requirements of the designers" is brought up a lot in response to complaints about proposed changes. Explanations as to what exactly these requirements usually have to be repeatedly requested, and reasons why these requirements should override other requirements are seldom given.
The two exceptions to this are the tops of the stacks:
So it's "Whenever possible, you get these non-free fonts we like. Then we throw in some supposedly-generic names used by prominent non-free fonts with the platitude that they're often mapped to free fonts on Linux".
On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 12:07 AM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.orgwrote:
The free font advocates have refused to identify the fonts that they want to be considered and why they should be considered other than the fact that they are free,
"the fact that they are free" specifically is what we want to be considered.
As for specific fonts, my knowledge of fonts extends to "serif", "sans-serif", and "monospace".
- DejaVu Serif. Conclusion: Widely installed, but horribly ugly
{{citation needed}}. Sounds like someone's peronsal opinion to me.
I just checked,[2] and it turns out DejaVu Sans is what I've been reading Wikipedia in all these years. Seems far from "horribly ugly" to me. Nicer than Arial used in Gmail where "I" and "l" look the same, or the font that my system uses as a fallback for Helvetica ("TeX Gyre Heros").
[2]: In Firefox: Tools → Web Developer → Inspector, then choose Fonts in the box on the right.
and looks nothing like the style desired by the designers.
And why is this an overriding concern? I could as well state the designers should desire a different style.
* Nimbus Roman No9 L. Conclusion: Basically a clone of Times. Most Linux
systems map Times to Nimbus Roman No9 L, so there is no advantage to specifying "Nimbus Roman No9 L" rather than "Times" (which also maps to fonts on Windows and Mac).
OTOH, there's no disadvantage to specifying Nimbus Roman No9 L with "Times" as a fallback for Windows and Mac users.
- Linux Libertine. Conclusion: A well-designed free font that matches the
look of the Wikipedia wordmark. Unfortunately, it is not installed by default on any systems (as far as anyone knows)
Why does this matter? If Libertine is a good font, why not use it and fall back to other choices for people who don't have it?
- Liberation Sans. Conclusion: Essentially a free substitute for Arial.
Like Nimbus Roman, there is no advantage to specifying "Liberation Sans" instead of "Arial" (which is at the bottom of the sans-serif stack) since Linux systems will map to Liberation Sans anyway, while other systems will apply Arial.
Again, there's no also disadvantage to specifying Liberation Sans with "Arial" as a fallback for unfortunate users who only have non-free fonts distributed with their OS.