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$Id: README,v 1.2 2005/12/01 15:00:24 peterlin Exp $ |
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Summary: This project aims to privide a set of free scalable (i.e., |
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OpenType) fonts covering the ISO 10646/Unicode UCS (Universal |
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Character Set). |
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WHY DO WE NEED FREE SCALABLE UCS FONTS? |
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A large number of free software users switched from free X11 |
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bitmapped fonts to proprietary Microsoft Truetype fonts, as a) they |
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used to be freely downloaded from Microsoft Typography page |
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<http://www.microsoft.com/typography/free.htm>, b) they contain a more |
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or less decent subsed of the ISO 10646 UCS (Universal Character Set), |
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c) they are high-quality, well hinted scalable Truetype fonts, and d) |
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Freetype <http://www.freetype.org/>, a free high-quality Truetype font |
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renderer exists and has been integrated into the latest release of |
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XFree86, the free X11 server. |
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Building a dependence on non-free software, even a niche one like |
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fonts, is dangerous. Microsoft Truetype core fonts are not free, they |
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are just costless. For now, at least. Citing the TrueType core fonts |
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for the Web FAQ <http://www.microsoft.com/typography/faq/faq8.htm>: |
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"You may only redistribute the fonts in their original form (.exe or |
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.sit.hqx) and with their original file name from your Web site or |
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intranet site. You must not supply the fonts, or any derivative fonts |
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based on them, in any form that adds value to commercial products, |
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such as CD-ROM or disk based multimedia programs, application software |
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or utilities." As of August 2002, however, the fonts are not |
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anymore available on the Web, which makes the situation clearer. |
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Aren't there any free high-quality scalable fonts? Yes, there are. |
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URW++, a German digital typefoundry, released their own version of the |
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35 Postscript Type 1 core fonts under GPL as their donation to the |
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Ghostscript project <http://www.gimp.org/fonts.html>. The Wadalab |
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Kanji comittee has produced Type 1 font files with thousands of |
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filigree Japanese glyphs <ftp://ftp.ipl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/pub/Font/>. |
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Yannis Haralambous has drawn beautiful glyphs for the Omega |
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typesetting system <http://omega.cse.unsw.edu.au:8080/>. And so |
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on. Scattered around the internet there are numerous other free |
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resources for other national scripts, many of them aiming to be a |
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suitable match for Latin fonts like Times or Helvetica. |
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WHAT DO WE PLAN TO ACHIEVE, AND HOW? |
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Our aim is to collect available resources, fill in the missing pieces, |
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and provide a set of free high-quality scalable (Opentype) UCS fonts, |
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released under GNU General Public License. |
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Free UCS scalable fonts will cover the following character sets |
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* ISO 8859 parts 1-15 |
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* CEN MES-3 European Unicode Subset |
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http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/cwa13873.pdf |
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* IBM/Microsoft code pages 437, 850, 852, 1250, 1252 and more |
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* Microsoft/Adobe Windows Glyph List 4 (WGL4) |
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http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/opentype/appendices/wgl4.html |
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* KOI8-R and KOI8-RU |
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* DEC VT100 graphics symbols |
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* International Phonetic Alphabet |
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* Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, Thai and Lao alphabets, |
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including Arabic presentation forms A/B |
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* Japanese Katakana and Hiragana |
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* mathematical symbols, including the whole TeX repertoire of symbols |
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* APL symbols |
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etc. |
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A free outline font editor, George Williams's FontForge |
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<http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/> will be used for creating new |
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glyphs. |
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Which font shapes should be made? As historical style terms like |
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Renaissance or Baroque letterforms cannot be applied beyond |
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Latin/Cyrillic/Greek scripts to any greater extent than Kufi or Nashki |
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can be applied beyond Arabic script, a smaller subset of styles will |
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be made: one monospaced and two proportional (one with uniform stroke |
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and one with modulated) will be made at the start. |
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In the beginning, however, we don't believe that Truetype hinting will |
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be good enough to compete with neither the hand-crafted bitmapped |
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fonts at small sizes, nor with commercial TrueType fonts. A companion |
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program for modifying the TrueType font tables, TtfMod, is in the |
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works, though: <http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/TtfMod/>. For |
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applications like xterm, users are referred to the existing UCS bitmap |
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fonts, <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html>. |
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LICENSING |
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Free UCS scalable fonts is free software; you can redistribute it |
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and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as |
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published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the |
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License, or (at your option) any later version. |
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The fonts are distributed in the hope that they will be useful, but |
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WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
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MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU |
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General Public License for more details. |
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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
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along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software |
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Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA |
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02110-1301, USA. |
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As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font, |
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and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the |
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document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to |
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be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not |
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however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered |
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by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may |
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extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not |
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obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception |
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statement from your version. |
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WHAT DO THE FILE SUFFICES MEAN? |
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The files with .sfd (Spline Font Database) are in FontForge's native |
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format. Please use these if you plan to modify the font |
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files. FontForge can export these to mostly any existing font file |
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format. |
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TrueType fonts for immediate consumption are the files with the .ttf |
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(TrueType Font) suffix. You can use them directly, e.g. with the X |
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font server. |
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The files with .ps (PostScript) suffix are not font files at all - |
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they are merely PostScript files with glyph tables, which can be used |
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for overview, which glyphs are contained in which font file. |
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You may have noticed the lacking of PostScript Type 1 (.pfa/.pfb) font |
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files. Type 1 format does not support large (> 256) encoding vectors, |
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so they can not be used with ISO 10646 encoding. If your printer |
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supports it, you can use Type 0 format, though. Please use FontForge |
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for conversion to Type 0. |
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Primoz Peterlin, <primoz.peterlin@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si> |
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Free UCS scalable fonts: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/freefont/ |
