Introducing Trufont, World’s First Native UFO3 Font Editor (& fully cross-platform)

Adam Twardoch

In the font editor market (as in many others), there has been a long line of one app serving as a prototype to another. Altsys Fontographer served as a base for RoboFog, and later evolved into Macromedia Fontographer, which served as a source of inspiration for FontLab 3, and was later also acquired by FontLab. FontLab Studio 5, a successor to FontLab 3, and Fontographer/RoboFog, were the base for the development of RoboFab and UFO, and later served as strong inspiration for RoboFont (along with a number of plugins). FontLab 4 and FontLab Studio 5 served as inspiration for many solutions in FontForge. 

I personally don’t have a problem at all with TruFont replicating certain UI ideas or workflow paradigms from our FontLab Studio and Fontographer, or from apps that were inspired by or based (be it conceptually or code-wise) on our tools. As long as there is no verbatim code copying or patent infringement, I welcome the development. Personally, I have supported FontForge development in the past, and now support the development of TruFont. Also, I think more competition is good for me in my role as Director of Products at FontLab  

BTW, looking at the font editors from 25-30 years ago (and there have been many, on many operating systems, including MacOS, Windows, Atari ST/TT TOS, AmigaOS etc.), it seems that Fontographer was the one which has served as the source of inspiration for most subsequent projects. Ikarus, Letraset FontStudio, TypeArt (for Calamus on Atari ST), FontMonger, TypeDesigner, Manutius and a number of others have spun off much fewer followers, if any at all. 

Thomas Phinney

Full agreement with what Adam said. Plenty of folks have borrowed ideas from FontLab and Fontographer, and that’s okay.