Re: Funding FontForge

5 years is optimistic. :) FontLab VI started 6 years ago as an end-to-end replacement for FontLab Studio 5, with several full-time developers. It's only nearing completion now, and FontLab Studio 5 still trumps VI in terms of stability. 

It's feels funny to be praising "competition" of sorts, but I can say that FontForge has not only been very useful for a number of typeface designers — it has been indispensable to complete certain most complex projects that no other tool would allow to happen. 

FontForge may have mighty competition in the mainstream field of "typical" font families. And for some tasks, there are better alternative. 

But in the edge cases (say MATH fonts), especially where commercial development may be unprofitable because certain functionalities are not "mass-worthy", FontForge shines. Once I've studied it long enough, I am rather amazed by both the breadth and depth of its functionality. 

It's actually a perfect case where opensource software makes most sense — FontForge does not (and IMO should not) compete or try to compete with the big mainstream. 

It's not a sports car, it ain't as pretty as a sports car, and possibly it never will be. But as a Russian truck to cross the bumpy Siberian terrains, it's great, and even unmatched. ;) 

A.

Sent from my mobile phone.

> On 19.04.2016, at 09:26, Frank Trampe <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Behdad.
> 
> This was indeed a result of my queries. But even Dave still uses FontForge, as I remarked to much snickering during my LGM talk this year. And Dave is far from alone in this regard.
> 
> By my estimates, there are about 2,000 active typeface designers in the world, and the FontForge release from a few weeks ago recently hit 10,000 downloads, not counting Debian and Ubuntu packages. This means that FontForge has roughly 500% market share. It would be devastating to the typeface design community to lose access to a tool that 5 in 1 of its members use regularly.
> 
> The death of FontForge is not an end unto itself and does not magically create a replacement software package. We're probably five years from having an end-to-end replacement, and people still need to design, to maintain, and to convert typefaces during that time.
> 
> I'm not thrilled about carrying most of the burden, but FontForge must continue to support its user community, and I hope that its user community will consider ways to support FontForge during that time.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Frank
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 5:44 PM, Behdad Esfahbod <[email protected]> wrote:
>> You won't let Fontforge die, do you?!
>> 
>>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Dave Crossland <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi
>>> 
>>> http://consortium.pharo.org/web/Membership seem like a nice idea
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Cheers
>>> Dave
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> behdad
>> http://behdad.org/
>> 
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