Free Software For Design In Argentina

2 Responses to “Free Software For Design In Argentina”

1. Dan Reynolds on May 17th, 2008 10:56

   You know, I know that it is funny to poke fun at Microsoft’s Core Fonts, since they are so common that they lead to over-use, and can be found in almost every badly-desiged document on the planet. Plus you have this angle where you see Microsoft as an evil corporation ham-fisting its products on unsuspecting computer users all around the world. But really, we should all raise a glass to Microsoft’s core fonts.

   Microsoft has done more to bring script support to the people of the world than anyone else, public or private. The OLPC was a nice idea, but the script support of the computer you showed me was abysmal. Compare this with a machine running Microsoft XP or Vista, where you have out-of-the-box supoort for writing systems used in almost all the parts of the world.

   And even back in the mid-90s, it was Microsoft who started this expansion. They were the one to start shipping WGL4 fonts, as Gerry likes to tell us. These started the ball rolling with Eastern European accent support, Greek, and Cyrillic. Without Microsoft, computer users in Poland, Russia, India, Jordan, or anywhere else outside North America and Western Europe would be up the creek without a paddle.

   In another post, you write that it is OK for the OLPC to ship with Windows XP because 1 million children get the Internet that way, and this is a net good. I agree with you, and I think that MS’s script support is a huge net good, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t see any serious script initiative coming out of the free software world, except for SIL’s work and Gentium. In order to gripe about Microsoft’s products, it would be better to offer a real alternative. At the moment, I don’t see one. Build it first, then fight your “free software is a human rights issue” campaign.

2. David Crossland on May 17th, 2008 13:05

   Contributing to the “free software is a human rights issue” campaign is an important part of building a real alternative.

   With Microsoft, computer users everywhere are indeed up the creek without a paddle, as far as their freedom is concerned; Microsoft is a convicted market monopolist, let’s not forget.

   Of course, I fully acknowledge that the MS core fonts and many other MS programs are exceptionally high quality - some of the core fonts are, in my opinion, great type designs too.

   But these “problem solving” aspects are secondary in comparison to their social effects. Since they are redistributable, half the problem with their social effects is already solved, but sadly I don’t think we’ll ever see them respect people’s freedom to fit them to their own needs.

   Part and parcel of being the largest OS development company in the world is bringing script support to the people of the world.

   I’ve heard Adobe managers say something like “supporting 80% of this script gives a reasonable return on investment, but 100% support would not be profitable enough.” (This was at the Non-Latin conference at St Bride late last year) That’s true as an application developer, but it seems likely to me that OS developers would find 80% support less profitable than 100% support.

   However, text layout engine support of a script is only half the story, and the proprietary restrictions hobble people using Windows in uncommon languages in other ways: When I was in Croatia last year, I heard about how awful the quality of the translations were in that part of the world.

   https://translations.launchpad.net/ and http://translate.fedoraproject.org/ are good examples of how communities can improve the quality of their free software without being programmers.

   The text layout engine in the OLPC XO I have is about a year old, and that whole program (Pango) is being rewritten at the moment (Harfbuzz). In about 2 years it will be much more comparable with the ATS and WPF renderers.

   I think it is sad but not awful that OLPC is going to ship with both GNU+Linux and Windows, because people will have a easy way of not giving up their human right to control their computers. This is in no way a concession to the social harm caused by proprietary software.

   I’m not griping about Microsoft’s products per se, because that’s focusing on secondary aspects of what they do. I’m against the harmful effects their way of doing business has on me and everyone I know.

   Thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me, as always :-)

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