What does the OpenType font "Open" mean?

Kazunari Tsuboi

This is a question from a very personal interest.
What does the OpenType font "Open" mean?
I couldn't find out why the word "Open" was used in this font format by looking at the specs and so on.
If you have any clues as to why, please let me know.

George Thomas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType

Igor Petrovic

"Open" refers to the context of early 90s where Apple and Adobe initially had separate/competing font formats (TrueType and Type1-PostScript). Microsoft joined the game, initially trying to license Apple's technology. Negotiations failed, so MS joined the forces with Adobe to develop a new format that combines two technologies and overcomes their limitations. "Open" is chosen in that sense.

There is more on Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType

Mark Simonson

It basically means that the format is open in the sense of "not proprietary."

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

It opened up old outlines for selling in a new format... Again.

Thomas Phinney

What is funny is that of course it was originally still proprietary in the sense of privately controlled (not by an open consortium) by Microsoft and (as an arguably slightly junior partner) Adobe. Only with the later spin-off / development as the “Open Font Format” did it get a technically open process.

Of course, the reality is more nuanced.

Microsoft and Adobe were generally at least somewhat open to feedback from the beginning—more so than with earlier formats.

And even after the Open Font Format came into official existence, OFF and OpenType specs both remained in existence, but in sync. At this point the size/importance of a given player has some influence on how seriously their concerns are taken, and yet individuals and smaller companies can still contribute and influence the process—sometimes greatly.

John Hudson

In the mid-90s, the intermediate stage between TrueType—as it had been licensed from Apple by Microsoft and extended with some new tables (e.g. OS/2)—and OpenType was what Microsoft called TrueType Open. This introduced the layout tables—GSUB, GPOS, GDEF—that are the core of what most people think of as OpenType. I never found out what the thinking was behind the use of the term ‘Open’: obviously not open source, but at least a publicly available format specification (Apple published their TT spec too, but I don’t recall the timing of that). I think the important thing for Microsoft was to have a new format brand, distinct from Apple’s TrueType format even though based on the same SFNT table structure and significantly compatible with it.

When Adobe got involved, and wanted to use the new layout tables and other aspects of TrueType Open but with non-TrueType outlines, it became desirable to have a name that did not directly reference TrueType. Hence, OpenType. So arguably, what OpenType is open to is including more than one possible outline format (now, with the SVG table, three outline formats, plus at least three bitmap formats). Of course, all this is possible because Apple’s SFNT structure was designed from the outset to be open to new tables.

Kazunari Tsuboi

Thank you for the great information!
TrueType, Type1, TrueTypeOpen, and OpneType. This history is very exciting. I was very impressed. I'm happy to know a little about the situation behind the choice of the word "Open". (I was a kid in the 1990s). for me, The word "Open" in OpenType felt like it was intended for the spec.

Eric Muller

There are a couple of clues on the origin of the names in the OpenType mailing list:

The first is from Greg Hitchcock on 2/17/16:

The TrueType Open name evolved from this email:

From: Steve Shaiman
Sent: Monday, February 28, 1994 6:18 PM
To: Dave Ohara; Eliyezer Kohen; Greg Hitchcock; Peter Pathe; Robert Norton; Vincent Connare
Subject: Name that TrueType, NOT 2.0

	We need a better name for what we've been calling TrueType 2.0. Peter Pathe and I agree that we want to use the word "Open" in the name (like "TT Open"). Dave and I came up with having an abbreviated name like "TrueType XO" where X can be exceptional, or cross-platform, or ???, and "O" is still for "Open". If you have some ideas let me know sometime this week (otherwise you may have to live something I come up with). ....

Steve

---

My memory of how the OpenType name came-to-be may differ from others, but I'll offer it up. In April of 1996, we had a hallway conversation on the implications of the arrangement with Adobe. We decided that we needed a name to describe the uber-technology that encapsulated both Type1 and TrueType. Dean Ballard, one of the designers of TrueType Open suggested we call it OpenType. That name seemed to stick.

GregH

Another is also from Greg on 2/18/16:

As I mentioned in my post, for TrueType Open, Steve Shaiman, my manager at the time, wanted to move away from what we were internally calling TrueType 2.0, to something with the word "open" in it. I'll have to ask him to see if he remembers why. 

I don't recall Microsoft positioning TrueType Open as "...a format for other vendors to implement, ending the 'font format wars'? ". TrueType Open (or some equivalent like TrueType GX) was critical for us, in the short term (of 1994), to implement some of our Japanese and Arabic fonts. We looked at the GX specifications, we talked to Apple, and ultimately, for a variety of reasons, decided to design our own system. (Side note, as we needed to ship some Japanese fonts before TrueType Open was ready, the fonts used a simplified version of the 'mort' table in their initial version.) In 1994, I would argue, the font wars were still going strong, with no obvious end in sight.

GregH

Finally, from Vincent Connare, on 2/19/16:

My memory of TrueType Open was that at the Microsoft invitational TrueType
Open we gave away golf hats with a logo that I made with a golf ball over a
T. I also think Robert Norton hosted a little golf tournament with some of
the attendees. The rules were bent in Robert's favour because he didn't
like the course layout so he remade how you played the holes.

I remember everyone thought TrueType Open sounded weird because it sounded
way too much like the US Open. So a new name was needed.

Eric.

GregHitchcock

I agree with Eric.