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A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

linyangchen.com

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Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#131

Post by chrisco255 »

jefftk wrote: post #95
chrisco255 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the majority of the software I use to write code is open source, but font authors will routinely ask for exorbitant amounts for a license, they often refuse to charge a flat fee, insisting that they get a higher cut if your app has a certain number of users. Just because an app is popular, doesn't mean it's raking in the dough to spend six figures on a font license. It's just bizarre that I can build an app…

It's really not that weird: there are open source fonts and proprietary fonts, just as there is open source software and proprietary software.

And even proprietary software used in programming web servers rarely ever attempts to charge a "per user" fee or six figures for a mildly popular app to use.

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#132

Post by Sunspark »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #128
Sunspark wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome. If you liked that one, go up a level in the github link and check out the other fonts, especially Junicode.

[Junicode]( https://junicode.sourceforge.io/ ) is a great font as well.

Version 2 has been updated a lot since version 1. https://psb1558.github.io/Junicode-font/

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#133

Post by xdennis »

rpastuszak wrote: post #81

I tried a similar approach but via CSS for my "medieval content farm" ( https://tidings.potato.horse ), but for perf. reasons ended up only randomising the opacity and tint of its individual characters and removed the transforms. My next step is to add those little padded areas hiding the empty spaces on the right side of the text[1][2], so the column of the text feels neater (horror vacui was a big thing then it see…

Unrelated, and sorry in advance if this is unwanted advice... but I see on your homepage that you say your name is pronounced /'rafau pastoohshak/. But that's an English interpretation and /.../ is typically used to refer to the International Phonetic Alphabet. (/.../ is approximate and [...] is the precise version.)

I think the IPA one is /rafaw pastuʂak/ (note: /ʂ/ is very similar to /ʃ/).

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#134

Post by xp84 »

adrian_b wrote: post #79
p-e-w wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I didn't know that some countries don't give protection to typefaces. Does that mean that if you take a commercial font file and strip the bytecode, retaining only the glyph shapes, you can do as you wish with the result? And does that mean all bitmap fonts are actually public domain in the US?

Stripping the bytecode may make the font look ugly at low display resolutions, though many modern font rendering programs use various auto-hinting algorithms to alleviate that (which were invented in order to circumvent the patents that could forbid the execution of the bytecode).

I don’t know what bytecode really is in this context, but a plain old vector image is a program too, so i don’t know of any process which would (in US law) let you convert a font into something public-domain.

(other than rasterizing text with it, at which point the output is not a “font” in the sense we usually mean when we use that term.)

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#135

Post by xp84 »

p-e-w wrote: post #59
pgeorgi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under US law, typefaces aren't copyrightable, and even in other copyright regimes, they only get a shorter protection duration. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... for an overview. The digital workaround is to have bytecode in font files that is copyrightable.

Interesting, I didn't know that some countries don't give protection to typefaces. Does that mean that if you take a commercial font file and strip the bytecode, retaining only the glyph shapes, you can do as you wish with the result? And does that mean all bitmap fonts are actually public domain in the US?

Protecting a typeface itself would be super annoying. Every document you make, every billboard put up, every word on every sign, menu, signs on every vehicle on the road, would need to have its fonts explicitly licensed for those uses, the way webfonts are today. Complete with rules like “you can use our typeface on a sign, but if the sign is in a town over 10,000 population, we want $100, and if it’s a city over 1 million, we want $10,000. Oh, and all of this is per year.”

Also, good luck even making a free font without being accused of making a “derivative work” of every copyright-encumbered font that’s come before. (“look at those serifs!”)

I know I started the thread by saying I think fonts deserve copyright, and I do, but not the typefaces themselves, as that would drastically disrupt what you can create. It would be especially arbitrary considering most faces are derivative of what came before, stretching back centuries. To paraphrase a famous quote, “You didn’t build that, [Adobe]”

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#136

Post by xp84 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #82
xp84 wrote: post #25

Reading this really helps illustrate why and how a font is considered a computer program and thus eligible for copyright protection. I don’t think most laypeople (and even many programmers) intuitively think of it that way because they seem like a collection of little pictures, but so much work goes into these fonts. We are fortunate to have so many good ones to choose from today, and that someone has footed the bill…

Probably the majority of the software I use to write code is open source, but font authors will routinely ask for exorbitant amounts for a license, they often refuse to charge a flat fee, insisting that they get a higher cut if your app has a certain number of users. Just because an app is popular, doesn't mean it's raking in the dough to spend six figures on a font license. It's just bizarre that I can build an app…

In case this helps anyone who’s been in this boat: I found that Monotype, who owns a LOT of fonts, offers far better terms for web and app licenses on fonts dot com, compared to myfonts dot com, which they also own. I licensed a bunch a couple years back that would have cost a fortune in recurring license fees at myfonts, which has great SEO so it’s always the first place you find.

One-time purchase from fonts dot com. Yes, it was still scaled based on monthly impressions, but at least you could pay and use it forever.

The other thing I found was that, on the corporate scale, Adobe Fonts (aka Typekit) is a bargain. Basically an unlimited web and app license for everything.

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#138

Post by giraffe_lady »

chrisco255 wrote: post #130
giraffe_lady wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more comparable to illustration or photography, or even to a written body of html or js, than it is to the programming language. It's the output of an applied specialist technician for a specific purpose. So similar to those other things you can find a free or cheap generic off-the-shelf one that suits your use, open source fonts exist. Or you can pay for a specific one that suits it better. Font design is a dom…

> It's more comparable to illustration or photography, or even to a written body of html or js, than it is to the programming languag Yeah again I can download about a few hundred thousand open source tools like ffmpeg, git, Linux, Chromium, web servers, databases, queues, web libs, etc and almost always the best stuff is open source. Almost never is there some kind of per user fee just for copying code, and if it is…

Font forge is open source, which is a tool more comparable to those than a completed font is. You're not entitled the results of the work of other specialists, even if you've become accustomed to that in other areas. And again, do you give away your completed work? Does no one pay you for the expertise you use for them?

A font is much more similar to a completed web app than it is to the tools used to create that app. You don't expect someone to make an app for you for free, even if there are apps available for your use for free. Same thing here.

Typographers aren't getting rich lmao. They're trying to pay the rent with their skills same as everyone.

Re: A 17th-century font in a 21st-century thesis

#139

Post by moritz »

edent wrote: post #5

That's wonderful! Does anyone know the best way to convert an old printed manuscript into a font file?

glyphtracer [1] can help with this, but letter shapes are only a small part of what makes a typeface. (Typography is about whitespace, or as Miles Davis said, “it‘s not about the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play that matter”.)

[1]: https://github.com/jpakkane/glyphtracer

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