Checking out the new Open Font Library
Thursday March 29, 2007 (08:01 PM GMT)
By: Bruce Byfield
The Open Font Library (OFL) is an offshoot of the Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) and Inkscape. Just beginning to get underway, its creation reflects the growing demand for fonts released under a free license, as well as the emergence of a free font community of designers in the last year and a half.
Jon Phillips, a community developer at Creative Commons who helps coordinate the OFL, says that at first he was reluctant to create the new site. “It’s really easy to get out of control and do a lot of different projects, which is not good for the community,” he says. Originally, he preferred to focus on ensuring that OCAL thrives, but community demand and the emergence of several volunteers for OFL made him change his mind.
Phillips notes that sites like OFL and OCAL attract a community that is different from that of a free and open source software (FOSS) project. Where most FOSS projects are oriented chiefly toward developers and perhaps end-users, sites based on free artwork and typefaces require a number of different roles. To start with, they are based on uploads from contributors, who may or may not be the original designers. Librarians are required to catalogue contributions and check for copyright violations — which are must easier than with source code — while other community members contribute by reviewing and tagging contributions. Since OCAL averages close to a hundred uploads a day, the effort involved can be considerable.
Read more: linux.com
~LC
Posted by LinuxChick - Baldys Paradox