Fontconfig - Nov 2005 - adding/distributing new fonts

Two Korean fonts are released today.

The UnFont is lincensed under GPL and
the Baekmuk is under BSD.

Can anyone in charge of handling fonts issue please check if these 
fonts can be added to default xorg distribution?

You can download them at the following URL.

http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/
http://kldp.net/projects/baekmuk/

Thank you very much.


On Sat, 7 Aug 2004 08:45:57 +0900, Soon-Son Kwon <ksoonson@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Thank you very much for the comments.
> 
> But still I do not fully understand how to add a new font
> to the default xorg distribution. What is the detailed license
> requirement? Alan''s opinion is what I thought initially.
> 
> I think font is something like picture or novel which does not
> need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like that
though
> some will. I remember that in the current xorg distribution,
> modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed.
> 
> Here are some free font project in Korea.
> 1. http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/
> - almost ready to release within a week.
> - current snapshot can be downloaded from
> http://chem.skku.ac.kr/~wkpark/project/font/UnFonts/20040805/ )
> 
> 2. http://kldp.net/projects/baekmuk/
> - actual fonts are in cvs tree
> - already included in many linux distributions including
debian/gentoo/fedora
> 
> Can anyone please check if these fonts are ready to be included?
> We are also planning to apply for government fund for commercial high
quality
> fonts so that we can purchase the whole rights including free
redistribution.
> 
> If xorg distribution can hold more fonts for double-byte character users,
> then it would benefit many many people.
> 
> Thanks very much.
> 
> /Shawn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 17:44:09 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot
> <nicolas.mailhot@laposte.net> wrote:
> > On ven, 2004-08-06 at 08:18 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> > > xorg@freedesktop.org is the mailing list for xorg, and would be a
much
> > > better place to discuss adding fonts to the X.Org distribution,
so I''ve
> > > cc''ed it.
> > >
> > > I believe the license requirements are that it be some sort of
open source
> > > license, but that the requirements for fonts are a bit looser
than source
> > > code.
> > >
> > > TrueType fonts are the currently preferred format.
> >
> > And of course the preferred way would be to have a single set of
> > consistent truetype fonts with full unicode coverage.
> >
> > If everyone could just contribute glyphs to a single font family (the
> > Vera fonts Bitstream liberated for gnome seems a good base) instead of
> > multiplying fonts with partial coverage this would be better for all
of
> > us.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > --
> > Nicolas Mailhot
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> --
> http://kldp.org/~kss
> 

-- 
http://kldp.org/~kss

Hello,

On Fri, Aug 06, 2004, Ambrose Li wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 08:45:57AM +0900, Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> 
> > I think font is something like picture or novel which does
> > not need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like
> > that though some will. I remember that in the current xorg
> > distribution, modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed.
> 
> I agree that the designers won''t like it, but I disagree that
> fonts need not be freely modified. I can see a couple of reasons
> why free fonts should be freely modifiable like free software:
> 
> 1. to correct bugs in the font (e.g., wrong character in a CJK
>    font), and
  We had released Dr. Wang''s Chinese GNU GPL TrueType fonts recently,

  ftp://cle.linux.org.tw/pub2/fonts/wangfonts
  ftp://ftp.tnc.edu.tw/pub/freefont/wangnew/
  http://cle.linux.org.tw/fonts/wangfonts/
> 2. to make other relatively easy improvements (e.g., by merging
>    a Big5 and a GB font to improve the Unicode coverage)
  FireFly had released Arphic New Sung too(Arphic PL, GPL-like),

  http://www.study-area.org/apt/firefly-font/

  AR PL New Sung = AR PL Mingti2L Big5 + AR PL SungtiL GB
> >From a sort-of user point of view, it would be fine enough if
> the designers can be contacted (so the improvements can be
> sent), but I have run into fonts where I don''t know who the
> designer is.
> 
> Cheers,
> 

Edward

Thank you very much for the comments.

But still I do not fully understand how to add a new font
to the default xorg distribution. What is the detailed license
requirement? Alan''s opinion is what I thought initially.

I think font is something like picture or novel which does not
need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like that though
some will. I remember that in the current xorg distribution,
modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed. 

Here are some free font project in Korea.
1. http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/ 
- almost ready to release within a week.
- current snapshot can be downloaded from
http://chem.skku.ac.kr/~wkpark/project/font/UnFonts/20040805/ )

2. http://kldp.net/projects/baekmuk/
- actual fonts are in cvs tree
- already included in many linux distributions including debian/gentoo/fedora

Can anyone please check if these fonts are ready to be included?
We are also planning to apply for government fund for commercial high quality
fonts so that we can purchase the whole rights including free redistribution.

If xorg distribution can hold more fonts for double-byte character users,
then it would benefit many many people.

Thanks very much.

/Shawn


On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 17:44:09 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot
<nicolas.mailhot@laposte.net> wrote:
> On ven, 2004-08-06 at 08:18 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> > xorg@freedesktop.org is the mailing list for xorg, and would be a much
> > better place to discuss adding fonts to the X.Org distribution, so
I''ve
> > cc''ed it.
> >
> > I believe the license requirements are that it be some sort of open
source
> > license, but that the requirements for fonts are a bit looser than
source
> > code.
> >
> > TrueType fonts are the currently preferred format.
> 
> And of course the preferred way would be to have a single set of
> consistent truetype fonts with full unicode coverage.
> 
> If everyone could just contribute glyphs to a single font family (the
> Vera fonts Bitstream liberated for gnome seems a good base) instead of
> multiplying fonts with partial coverage this would be better for all of
> us.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> --
> Nicolas Mailhot
> 
> 
> 

-- 
http://kldp.org/~kss

On Sun, Aug 08, 2004, Ambrose Li wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 11:23:58PM +0800, Edward G.J. Lee wrote:
> > 
> >   FireFly had released Arphic New Sung too(Arphic PL, GPL-like),
> > 
> >   http://www.study-area.org/apt/firefly-font/
> > 
> >   AR PL New Sung = AR PL Mingti2L Big5 + AR PL SungtiL GB
> 
> Ah, good to know that, since this is almost exactly what I intended
> to do. I wonder if they''re going to also add more characters.
  The purpose of AR PL New Sung is to embed bitmaps into TTF,
  next release will embed more bitmaps. Thanks to FireFly.

  But I don''t think it''s easy to add more characters, because
  we don''t have another free fonts and APL is not GPL compatible.



Edward

Thank you very much for your comment.
It will be a nice reference for our future work.

As for now, the font I mentioned are licensed under GPL
and especially the UnFont( http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/ )
is about to be released within a few days.
(wkpark(he is in the To: list of this email also from the beginning) 
is the maintainer)

He hopes that the UnFont can be included to the current xorg distribution
so that users do not have to manually setup Korean font.
The current xorg distribution does not have nice Korean
font so users should always download / setup fonts in Korea.

I will let you xorg developers know once the UnFont is released.

I hope xorg add this font so that Korean users need not spend
too much time in the future. 

Regards...

/Shawn


On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 22:51:44 -0400, Jim Gettys <jim.gettys@hp.com>
wrote:
> Please take a look at the license I worked out with Bitstream
> for the Vera fonts.
> 
> It manages to meet free software standards, while protecting
> the interests of the font designers to not have their name
> on modifications they do not approve of, and ensuring that
> they not just be dropped into a font resale system, but allowing
> them to be used in any other circumstance freely.
> 
> See http://www.gnome.org/fonts
> 
> Fonts need on-going maintenance (new characters need
> to be added from time to time), so unmodifiable fonts end up,
> with time, not being all that useful.
>                          Regards,
>                            - Jim Gettys
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 19:45, Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> > Thank you very much for the comments.
> >
> > But still I do not fully understand how to add a new font
> > to the default xorg distribution. What is the detailed license
> > requirement? Alan''s opinion is what I thought initially.
> >
> > I think font is something like picture or novel which does not
> > need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like
that though
> > some will. I remember that in the current xorg distribution,
> > modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed.
> >
> > Here are some free font project in Korea.
> > 1. http://kldp.net/projects/unfonts/
> > - almost ready to release within a week.
> > - current snapshot can be downloaded from
> > http://chem.skku.ac.kr/~wkpark/project/font/UnFonts/20040805/ )
> >
> > 2. http://kldp.net/projects/baekmuk/
> > - actual fonts are in cvs tree
> > - already included in many linux distributions including
debian/gentoo/fedora
> >
> > Can anyone please check if these fonts are ready to be included?
> > We are also planning to apply for government fund for commercial high
quality
> > fonts so that we can purchase the whole rights including free
redistribution.
> >
> > If xorg distribution can hold more fonts for double-byte character
users,
> > then it would benefit many many people.
> >
> > Thanks very much.
> >
> > /Shawn
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 17:44:09 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot
> > <nicolas.mailhot@laposte.net> wrote:
> > > On ven, 2004-08-06 at 08:18 -0700, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> > > > xorg@freedesktop.org is the mailing list for xorg, and would
be a much
> > > > better place to discuss adding fonts to the X.Org
distribution, so I''ve
> > > > cc''ed it.
> > > >
> > > > I believe the license requirements are that it be some sort
of open source
> > > > license, but that the requirements for fonts are a bit
looser than source
> > > > code.
> > > >
> > > > TrueType fonts are the currently preferred format.
> > >
> > > And of course the preferred way would be to have a single set of
> > > consistent truetype fonts with full unicode coverage.
> > >
> > > If everyone could just contribute glyphs to a single font family
(the
> > > Vera fonts Bitstream liberated for gnome seems a good base)
instead of
> > > multiplying fonts with partial coverage this would be better for
all of
> > > us.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > --
> > > Nicolas Mailhot
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xorg mailing list
> xorg@freedesktop.org
> http://freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
> 

-- 
http://kldp.org/~kss

Hi Danilo,

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 11:55:48AM +0200, Danilo Segan wrote:
> Hi Edward,
[...]
> There''re many excellent free fonts.  You can start with
> URW-CYR (35 faces), Computer Modern Unicode (CM Unicode,
> another couple of dozen faces, all based on Knuth''s
> magnificient Computer Modern family of typefaces ;), Bitstream
> Vera, ... There''re other free fonts for non-Latin/Cyrillic
> based scripts, but I don''t know much about them (except that
> they exist :).
Edward was certainly referring to free CJK fonts. Free CJK fonts
are indeed still relatively rare.  It is still impossible to
find a complete set of roman (Ming/Mingcho/Sung), italic (Kai),
and sans-serif (Gothic/Hei) fonts with regular and bold weights
(and also oblique/"italic" in the case of sans-serif), for
example.

Decorative and script faces are also difficult to find in general,
though Dr Wang''s fonts have improved the situation for Chinese a
lot.  Fonts are somewhat easier to find in Japanese, but a lot
are non-free (in the free software sense of free).

With the lack of bold fonts in general, it would be good to
revive the tradition of using sans-serif fonts as bold, but it
is almost impossible to configure fontconfig or modern word
processors etc. to substitute sans-serif for bold :-(

Best regards,
-- 
???  <a.c.li@ieee.org>  http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/

On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 11:23:58PM +0800, Edward G.J. Lee
wrote:
> 
>   FireFly had released Arphic New Sung too(Arphic PL, GPL-like),
> 
>   http://www.study-area.org/apt/firefly-font/
> 
>   AR PL New Sung = AR PL Mingti2L Big5 + AR PL SungtiL GB
Ah, good to know that, since this is almost exactly what I intended
to do. I wonder if they''re going to also add more characters.

xorg@freedesktop.org is the mailing list for xorg, and would be a much
better place to discuss adding fonts to the X.Org distribution, so I''ve
cc''ed it.

I believe the license requirements are that it be some sort of open source
license, but that the requirements for fonts are a bit looser than source
code.

TrueType fonts are the currently preferred format.

	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith@sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering


Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> Hi all:
> I am Korean user.
> At http://freedesktop.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xorg/xc/fonts/encodings/,
> there are many fonts which seems to be distributed as default.
> 
> But as for Korean fonts, few fonts are distributed together hence 
> users should add & configure Korean fonts manually which takes much
time
> and discourages new users who do not have much experience with X before.
> 
> We already have some free/open Korean fonts and some people are working
> on new fonts. If these Korean fonts can be added to the default
distrubition,
> then it will greatly benefit many people.
> 
> - Can anyone please let me know how to add Korean fonts to the default
> xorg source distribution? Is there any approval process?
> - What is the license requirement for that fonts?
> - What should be the technical font format for this?
> 
> Any comments are welcomed.
> 
> Thanks very much.

Ambrose Li wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 08:45:57AM +0900, Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> 
> 
>>I think font is something like picture or novel which does
>>not need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like
>>that though some will. I remember that in the current xorg
>>distribution, modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed.
> 
> 
> I agree that the designers won''t like it, but I disagree that
> fonts need not be freely modified. 
The middle ground is the license used by the Bitstream Vera fonts
(which are the only fonts I know of added to Xorg recently) - they
allow changes, but only if you rename your changed version so it''s
clear it''s not the work of their designers.

http://www.gnome.org/fonts/

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith@sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering

Hello Danilo,

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004, Danilo ??egan wrote:
> Hi Edward,
> 
> Today at 11:22, Edward G. J. Lee wrote:
> 
> >   But I don''t think it''s easy to add more
characters, because
> >   we don''t have another free fonts and APL is not GPL
compatible.
> 
> There''re many excellent free fonts.  You can start with URW-CYR
(35
> faces), Computer Modern Unicode (CM Unicode, another couple of dozen
> faces, all based on Knuth''s magnificient Computer Modern family of
> typefaces ;), Bitstream Vera, ... There''re other free fonts for
> non-Latin/Cyrillic based scripts, but I don''t know much about them
> (except that they exist :).
  The problem is the license, URW fonts license under GNU GPL
  AFAIK. But APL is not GPL compatible. :(
  
  Anyway, we have another MBE Arphic font project by Arne Goetje,
  maybe will have more characters.
  
  Currently it fully supports the following charsets:
  
  ISO8859-1,2,3,4,7,9,10,13,14,15
  Big5
  GB2312-80
  Modern Bopomofo Extensions for Hakka, Minnan
  
  Partly support is implemented for:
  
  HKSCS
  CNS 11643
  GB18030

  http://debian.linux.org.tw/pub/3Anoppix/people/arne/



Edward

Hi,

On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 08:45:57AM +0900, Soon-Son Kwon wrote:
> I think font is something like picture or novel which does
> not need to be freely modified. The font designers won''t like
> that though some will. I remember that in the current xorg
> distribution, modifiable/non-modifiable fonts are mixed.
I agree that the designers won''t like it, but I disagree that
fonts need not be freely modified. I can see a couple of reasons
why free fonts should be freely modifiable like free software:

1. to correct bugs in the font (e.g., wrong character in a CJK
   font), and

2. to make other relatively easy improvements (e.g., by merging
   a Big5 and a GB font to improve the Unicode coverage)
>From a sort-of user point of view, it would be fine enough if
the designers can be contacted (so the improvements can be
sent), but I have run into fonts where I don''t know who the
designer is.

Cheers,

-- 
Ambrose LI Cheuk-Wing  <a.c.li@ieee.org>

http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/

Hi,

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 05:22:18PM +0800, Edward G.J. Lee wrote:
>   But I don''t think it''s easy to add more characters,
because
>   we don''t have another free fonts and APL is not GPL
>   compatible.
I had asked both Arphic and the FSF about this matter some
months ago, though I was not thinking about adding characters
from other fonts. It should be ok as long as we construct the
new characters from existing parts inside the APL''d fonts
themselves, or construct the new characters from scratch.

It should not be difficult to add more CJK characters, though
of course the quality of the new characters would be lower (in
fact I have already started doing it at that time, but stopped
shortly afterwards because it took a lot of time and fontforge
was using too much memory on my machine).

Best regards,
-- 
???  <a.c.li@ieee.org>  http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/

Hi all:
I am Korean user.
At http://freedesktop.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xorg/xc/fonts/encodings/,
there are many fonts which seems to be distributed as default.

But as for Korean fonts, few fonts are distributed together hence 
users should add & configure Korean fonts manually which takes much time
and discourages new users who do not have much experience with X before.

We already have some free/open Korean fonts and some people are working
on new fonts. If these Korean fonts can be added to the default distrubition,
then it will greatly benefit many people.

- Can anyone please let me know how to add Korean fonts to the default
xorg source distribution? Is there any approval process?
- What is the license requirement for that fonts?
- What should be the technical font format for this?

Any comments are welcomed.

Thanks very much.
-- 
http://kldp.org/~kss