Re: Quran - fonts

[Adil Allawi <adil at diwan dot com>]

At 12:56 am +0100 10/4/03, Nadim Shaikli wrote:
>--- Adil Allawi <adil diwan com> wrote:
>> At 7:32 am +0100 9/4/03, Nadim Shaikli wrote:
>> >   In return, Diwan releases their fonts (as it is today and as it will
>> >   get altered post unicode adoption).  The value of your application
>> >   is not in the fonts and as such Diwan retains the lion's heart of
>> >   any product proceeds (it would be nice to Open-Source your products
>> >   as well, but I think that conversation is a non-starter :-)
>>
>> Firstly Diwan puts a great deal of effort in its fonts and it has converted
>> its best fonts for use with the Quran and I cannot expect to make any of
>> these open-source as these are commercial fonts which publishers are still
>> buying. Secondly, the font is only part of the whole task. Just having a good
>> looking font does not get you much closer to your goal.
>
>Our goal at this instance is to increase the number of freely available
>Open Source fonts - not for our benefit but for the benefit of millions
>of people out there now and for many generations to come.  I understand
>your reluctance and views but they seem, with all due respect, a bit
>short-sighted.  In any regard, its your and your company's decision
>to whether you release something or not.
>
>Our goals are really rather genuine, we simply want to enable this
>technology to all Arabs/Muslims out there so any step in that direction
>(no matter how small or incomplete) is a step in the right direction.
>Fonts in and by themselves are never regarded as applications, they're
>an enabling means; alas, I'm going in circles :-)
>
>If there is anything we can do to either educate or assist in the realm
>of Open Source, etc - do please let us know.

I believe in your goals and I would be pleased to contribute to the open-source effort where there is a benefit for my company and, in my private time, where there is a benefit for the world. I do not see anything short-sighted in my view. I agree that there is a place for Open-Source software/fonts but this does not exclude the need for commercial software/fonts where people, who have spent many years learning their trade can see some benefit from their work. This is all I will say on the subject as this whole issue has been debated too many times elsewhere. If Diwan was contracted to make an Open-Source font, it would be happy to do this but it cannot give away its property without a good business reason.

I also must say that fonts are applications. The effort that goes into creating a good quality font is at least as much as that which goes into creating an application. A well-hinted Truetype font contains an application to make the characters display nicely at different sizes. Opentype fonts are no longer just a blind set of characters but an application. The biggest Arab newspapers and magazines sell partly on the fact that they have good fonts. That is people pay money for something with a good font. Why should the font designer not get something for this.

Kind regards,

Adil
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Adil Allawi
Technical Director   Diwan Software Ltd