SIL's Font Projects and the Open Font License

Fonts for every language: SIL's font projects and the Open Font License Jonathan Kew (based on slides by Victor Gaultney) jonathan_kew (at) sil (dot) org People around the world speak over 6000 languages; For many of the world's minorities, at least one (often to communicate in writing, these language commu- several) of these factors severely limits their access nities use hundreds of variations on dozens of differ- to digital information and modern communication ent scripts. Written communication is fundamental systems. to today's information-based world, and an ever- The situation is changing, albeit gradually. A increasing proportion of the world's writing and com- growing number of individuals and groups are coming munication is done through computer systems. together to provide solutions, and SIL International While the writing systems of major national is privileged to play a part. By linking experienced languages are generally well supported, millions of type designers and technicians with minority com- people still have no way to type their language on a munities that have particular needs, we have been computer, because there are no adequate fonts for able to provide high-quality fonts that meet the re- their writing system. Minority language communities quirements of a number of minority language groups. may use a well-known script such as Latin, Cyrillic, Graphite, an open-source font layout engine devel- Arabic, or Devanagari, but with particular extensions oped by SIL, makes it possible to program complex or variations that were not known to mainstream script behavior into fonts without waiting for the developers, and thus are not supported in standard (sometimes lengthy) process of standardization and fonts or software. In other cases, entire scripts used then implementation in engines like Uniscribe, Pango, by minority groups are as yet not fully documented or ICU. And X TE EX provides a document formatting or encoded in Unicode. system able to work with complex scripts, whether Without adequate support for their language in implemented via OpenType layout or Graphite. computer systems, people are excluded from the \in- For solutions to be useful, they must be available. formation society", or have access to it only through And to be maximally useful, they must also be adapt- a second or third language, seriously hampering their able, as no single developer can hope to meet the ability to participate in the modern world and to needs of all potential users. We therefore encourage access the resources they need to develop their own font developers to consider releasing their work under communities, as well as to benefit from current tech- the SIL Open Font License. This license is specifically nology to enhance their own literature and cultural designed for fonts and related software. To quote heritage. from the web site (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL), Several factors may play a part in cutting lan- \The OFL is designed to be in tune with the FLOSS guage communities off from adequate computing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) culture. It solutions: builds upon good ideas already in existence in some Availability Is there even a font for their script or free and open projects but by bringing our extensive alphabet? font design experience and linguistic software engi- Completeness Does that font support that partic- neering know-how into the mix, we believe we are ular language, with its unique variations on the able to make a font-specific license better, simpler, script? more human-readable, neutral and reusable." It is our view that every community should have Complexity Does the technology support the rules at least one high-quality font, working with standard of the writing system? software, suitable for their language. We invite the Quality Is the result both correct and attractive, partnership of all who are interested in making this in the eyes of the user community? a reality. Accessibility Does everyone have access to that solution? TUGboat, Volume 28 (2007), No. 3 | Proceedings of the 2007 Annual Meeting 305.

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